


But the Sun Shines Within Your Hold

by melchixr



Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Ballet, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Sweethearts, Closeted, Coming of Age, Dancing, Ernst and Hanschen were childhood sweethearts, First Kiss, Flirting, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentor/Protégé, Repression, Reunions, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Time Skips, basically a billy elliot AU, canon? who's she, they meet again as adults at a ballet academy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2020-10-25 22:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 41,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20731439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melchixr/pseuds/melchixr
Summary: “Kiss me.”“What?”Ernst let out a long sigh, dropping his bag down to the floor beside him. “For fucks sake. Just fucking kiss me so we can end this all. So I can stop feeling like this and it can all be over and you and I can go back to normal. Back to nothing. Back to acting like we don’t know each other.”Hanschen just stared, trying to understand the words that were flying at him, process Ernst’s request. He bit at his lip before saying in a voice much smaller than before. “Is that what you want? You want this all to end?”All of their unspoken words stopped there, standing in the middle of the deserted corridor, each waiting for the other to give in. Relent that a game was being played, relent that this is what they were waiting for, relent that something had to change before they both went completely insane.“It’s better than whatever we’re doing now.”-Title from "Danny Boy" by Rufus Wainwright--previously titled "truly see and be seen"-





	1. Chapter 1

1979

“Jesus Christ!” Hanschen’s voice reverberated across the waters and along the empty valley. Ernst couldn’t see much, but in the details he could see the boys form leap from the lake, sending water flying from him in all directions. Noisily, he splashed and swam his way back to the pebble filled shore where he stood and, in the gleaming moonlight, water dripped from his skin. “That was freezing, Ernst!” He cried, shaking his head of silver-shocked blond hair and splattering his companion with the water droplets. “Why do I listen to you?”

“It was a dare,” Ernst’s reply was light across the branches of the trees. His gaze tracked the other boy with intent interest, watching him move, bathed in blue light. He set to work picking up the clothes he had discarded by Ernst and pulling them back on. “If you didn’t do it, you’d be a pussy.”

Hanschen chuckled as he pulled back on his loose fitting shorts. “Oh, God forbid.” Then he turned back to Ernst, leaning back on his hands in the rocky shore, who seemed to jerk his eyes away from the other boy the moment he turned to look. Now, Ernst was staring at the shore on the other side of the lake, which was practically clear as day, illuminated by the soft white of moonlight. To the boy’s right, not too far but close enough to see that no lights were on, was Hanschen’s families cabin. Inside, his family slept peacefully, preparing for the long flight back home tomorrow morning. 

And they thought their son was fast asleep along with them.

“Hand me your jacket.”

Ernst looked back to Hanschen, dripping and shivering, his hand extended towards the baggy denim jacket on the ground beside Ernst. “No, you’re wet.”

“Because you made me jump in the fucking lake!” He extended his hand again, this time was met by Ernst handing him the dark blue jacket. “Besides, you’re not using it.”

He could feel Ernst’s eyes, wide and brown, staring up at him. He always thought Ernst’s eyes were so warm and deep, but now they looked black, trailing his every move as he pulled on the jacket. Which fit him well as opposed to how it made Ernst’s small frame completely disappear. 

“Okay, truth or dare?” Hanschen sat back down on the ground, pulling his wet, bare legs up to his chest. 

“Truth.”

“Jesus Christ, Ernst!” He exclaimed, tossing his head up to the star dotted sky. “You’re so boring! You always pick truth.”

“Cause if I pick dare you’ll make me jump in the lake!” His pale, freckle covered hands, began to pick at the pebbles at his feet, picking up the small rocks before tossing them aside, his movements light and almost effortless. 

Hanschen watched the hands for a few more moments before letting out a long sigh. “Fine then….” He looked out across the lake, to the lines of trees obscured by darkness, in the direction of the little town that he and Ernst had been running rampant in all summer. “Who do you like?”

A little cough and Ernst’s voice sunk into him. He spoke in sharp, sudden words. “This girl. In town. You don’t know her.”

“What’s her name?”

Ernst hesitated for only a moment before saying. “Sarah. Her name’s Sarah.”

"Sarah?"

"Yeah. Sarah."

"What's her last name?"

"I dunno her last name."

"You don't know her last name?"

Pointing an accusatory finger, Ernst scowled at Hanschen. "Well I don't know your last name either!"

"Cause it's a gross last name." Hanschen leaned closer to Ernst, trying to pick up any sign of surrender in the younger boy's face as he continued. “Why haven’t you introduced me to Sarah?”

Ernst looked at Hanschen, his face screwed up in confusion before spitting out. “Well she’s uh… She’s gone for the summer.”

Hanschen didn’t respond, just looked at Ernst turn away from him. In the darkness, he couldn’t see it, but he could tell that Ernst’s face was going red. So Hanschen nodded, gazing back to the water. Small waves pulling in and out of the shore, stopping just a few inches from their feet. “Sarah,” He chuckled under his breath before leaning back and hugging the borrowed jacket to his body. “Alright, ask me another one, Ernst.”

Ernst sighed, “Truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“See, it’s boring if you always say dare!” Ernst exclaimed, picking up a handful of pebbles and tossing them down into the water. 

But Hanschen just laughed, strands of blond hair sticking to his forehead as they slowly dried. “Cause I want a dare!” He could practically feel Ernst roll his eyes. “Fine. Then, truth.”

“Don’t be a prick!” Ernst reached out and punched Hanschen in the arm. It stung, but their laughter covered the pain. 

Rubbing his arm, Hanschen hissed and admired the surprising strength that came from such a small person. “I’m just giving you what you want. I asked for a truth.”

“Fine…” After a pause, Ernst shifted his weight away from Hanschen, sucking in air before asking. “Who do you like?”

“God, this is boring, give me a dare.”

“I gave you a truth! Answer it!”

“I don’t wanna! Give me a dare!” Ernst shook his head, resting his chin on his knees and staring out, across the quiet night. Hanschen watched him for a few breaths, trying to find in his gaze what he was looking for. Then, he turned to stare out across the lake, searching for whatever had caught Ernst. “And make it a good one…” He almost whispered, hugging his knees even tighter. 

“I dare you to kiss me.”

Hanschen began to talk, but the words got caught in his throat. It was as if his mouth would only allow the breath to leave, but no sounds except choked shock. Even if he could speak, he wouldn’t have had anything to say. It wasn’t until Ernst looked at him that he could speak. In the space between them, he could feel Ernst’s body tense. He was afraid that maybe Hanschen would laugh, maybe get up and leave, maybe call him a freak, maybe ask him to give him a real dare and to stop being such a pussy. Or even worse, to ask him why

“Alright then. Come here.”

Ernst obeyed, shifting to face Hanschen as he did the same, the two boys now face each other with their hands in their laps. Hanschen, who was sitting on his heels and still holding the jacket against him, shuddered. “Are you sure? I’m freezing.”

“Y-Yeah. I’m sure.” 

Ernst, stuttering over his own tongue, sat with his legs crossed, waiting. He wasn’t quite sure what he was waiting for. But he knew when he heard Hanschen take a sudden breath and lean forward. First he felt his hand, freezing cold and still a bit wet, press up against his cheek. It made him shiver, but the touch was so gentle he couldn’t help but lean into it and let his mouth guided slowly toward Hanschen’s. There was a bit of hesitation before Hanschen closed the gap between them, Ernst could feel a stutter of nervous breath on his lips before he felt Hanschen’s icy, chapped lips.

The kiss was gentle, hesitant. No pressure at all, no pressing into one another. Hanschen kissed him so lightly, Ernst would have thought it was a dream if it weren’t for the shocks being sent down his body. 

“Oh… Cool…” Was all he could say when the two pulled apart, his lips now cold and his hands still frozen in his lap. With a chuckle, Hanschen stood. 

“Okay, Ernst, truth or dare?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which I basically say "fuck you" to the original canon

1984

Ernst had hoped, at first, that maybe just the outside of the Academy was threatening. It was huge, almost castle like, with massive windows and a noble domed roof. It was as if someone had picked up a cathedral and put it on the corner of some street in a sleepy upstate New York town. 

Ernst, lost in gazing up at the columns and the old brown stone, didn’t hear his mother at first, even with her directly in his ear. “Ernst? Are you deaf, boy?”

“Sorry, Mum…” he jumped upon hearing her stern voice. He turned to see her, pointing to the massive open double doors at the top of stone steps, alive with other first semesters and their parents, carrying suitcases and looking at paperwork. 

“Come on, we’re late already,” She ushered him up the stairs. The two were followed by Ernst’s father, weighed down by suitcases. 

As they crossed through the doorway, the sign above them assuring them that they were entering the “Rilow Academy of Dance”, the building only appeared to be more grand. A huge vaulted ceiling towered above the Robel family, with sweeping staircases on either side of them, leading up to the second floor, where current students in tight black leotards peered over an ornate railing to see the commotion below. 

Ernst had been told that only fifty new students were admitted each semester, and most seemed to be in the main room, coming to and from the huge, stone, reception desk. Some were already being led down the arched hallways or up the stairs by smiling young tour guides. 

“Robel?” He said in a mousy voice to the woman at the desk, looking him over with a raised brow. “Ernst Robel.” 

She nodded, pulling a thick, manilla envelope from the ever shrinking stack. “Your assigned tour already left, Mr. Robel. So you’ll have to join the last group.”

“Knew it,” His mother sighed over his shoulder, her arms crossed and the tip of her heel tapping loudly on the old marble floors. Ernst just nodded, taking the envelope and thanking her profusely. 

The three had to wait for a few minutes, sitting aimlessly on one of the benches lining the octagonal room. Ernst sat, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands as he listened to his mother and father’s hushed argument behind him. He had told them that both didn’t have to join him on the flight to America, or even that he could go alone. But for some reason they both insisted on seeing him off, which, as he suspected, resulted in the last twelve hours being miserable for the three of them. 

“ La Barre, Anderson, Wall, Ornouski, Schmidt, Renfree, Blankenheim, and Robel?”

The remaining seven students milling around all approached the woman who called their name, a slim, petite woman with a head of brown waves pinned back like she was a nineteen-forties movie star. Her pink, bow lips formed in a smile as she spoke. “Hi all! I’m Wendla! I’m a fourth semester here and I’ll be your guide!”  
She started with the usual boring question, what’s everyone’s name, where are they from, what were they most excited about. Ernst wasn’t shocked to see that most of the others were from the states, except one Russian and one German student. One girl giggled and complimented his accent, which made him just cringe and thank her in the most muffled voice he could.

Oh, and most of them were girls.

In fact, almost all of them were girls except the Renfree boy, a tough looking guy from Arizona with a stoic face and dagger like eyes. Ernst would be lying if he said he didn’t purposefully walk beside him, hoping that maybe they’d have some sort of interaction. But he kept his eyes pointed ahead, watching as Wendla escorted them through the echoing halls and past ornate windows opening to the “main courtyard”. Across from the ain building they were in was a much less regal and dramatic looking brick building, where Wendla said the rehearsal rooms and dorms were. Then on either side were other, small classrooms on top of the several cafes that stood in the place of a normal school’s cafeteria. In the center of all the old stone and brick, a square of green and an ancient looking fountain filled with cherubs with moss blackened eyes. 

They would see it all, Wendla assured them, after the main building. 

That was where most of the classes were held, even as they walked down the halls they heard the echoes of music and teachers counting in demanding “One, Two, Three”s and the soft heartbeat of gentle feet on beat up, hardwood floors. 

Some of the doors were even open so we could see the groups of gorgeous dancers moving like their long, slender limbs were made to be graceful. From one of the open doors a voice called, stopping their group dead. “Wendla! Wait up!”  
From an open door echoing classical piano, a man stepped out. He clearly wasn’t a student, in his slacks and button ups, the sleeves rolled up to reveal lean, muscular arms. Ernst had been warned that if he ever broke dress code, he’d be dismissed immediately. Inside, a classroom full of dancers continued to prance across the floor, performing their warm ups in front of a wall of mirrors. 

“These some first semesters?” The man asked, flashing a seemingly permanent charming smile at the group. He was easily one of the most handsome men Ernst had ever met, a head of brown hair parted exactly so strands would fall into his face and make him look like the dreamy love interest in a chick-flick. 

Wendla nodded, her clipboard tucked tight to her chest. “Sure thing. Guy, this is Mister Gabor. He’ll be your techniques teacher while you’re here.”

A few of the students looked at each other in disbelief. He didn’t look a day over twenty-one. There were first semesters probably older than him. But he just leaned against the doorway and nodded. “Sure I’ll be seeing you all come Monday. Good luck with placements. That’s the toughest part of the semester, I swear.”

He and Wendla chuckled as if they knew better before Wendla turned to the group, “You know, your fourth semester, a teacher selects to privately mentor you all semester. And Mister Gabor is my private mentor. So start thinking now about who you’ll want.”

“I knew I’d pick Wendla on her very first day.”

Mister Gabor looked, a bit knowingly, at a blushing Wendla before giving the group a little salute and disappearing back into the classroom, his voice immediately echoing into the room, “Not an excuse to get sloppy, Madison!”

The group muttered about how cute Mister Gabor was for a bit as they were shown to the library and the changing rooms, where they were all given their own lockers. Their last names were already emblazoned on metal plaques above the slits on the old, metal. Ernst could hear the girls on the other side of a white, tile wall, giggling and pointing out who they were next to. 

Ernst looked at the locker beside his where the plaque read ‘M. STIEFEL’, but he was sure that the very stern looking Renfree didn’t want that information.

Ernst tried his best to relay all this information to his father, a busy man who still didn’t quite understand what this school was. The entire flight there was filled with Ernst repeating that, no, it’s not a college. But he does get a degree. And he will get jobs afterwards, he swears. 

He still didn’t seem to understand as they hugged Ernst goodbye at the entrance to the dormitories, wishing him luck and telling him to make sure to call before leaving him for their flight back home. 

They left him to unpack his small, single room alone. Mostly because no more than two people could fit in that room, between the desk and the bed. But even though the cream colored walls and single window made it look a bit like a prison, Ernst felt free. Like he could sit on the twin mattress and, for the first time in eighteen years, breathe. 

That was before there was a knock at his door. He had barely started to unpack his clothes into his tiny closet when it sounded, startling him before he moved to open the door, just a crack. Through that, he could see a wiry frame of a boy almost dissolved in a massive, neon blue sweater. It was like he was trying to disappear and pop out at the same time. 

“Oh, cool, you’re a dude...Uh… I was wondering if you had some tights I could borrow for placements tomorrow?” 

His voice was whiny, almost grating on Ernst’s ears. It seems to fry and fizzle towards the end of every phrase. 

“You didn’t bring tights?” Ernst asked in disbelief, opening the door as much as he could before it hit his suitcase. So not much more than a foot or so. 

The boy nodded uncomfortably, a blush already rising to his pale, sallow skin. “Yeah. Wouldya believe it if I said I forgot ‘em?” He rubbed the back of his head, further messing up his already wild black hair. “But I’m right next door so… I can get ‘em back to you fast, y’know?”

Ernst nodded, looking at the boy over before chuckling. “Are you sure they won’t be too big for you?” 

The boy looked at his body, and then up to Ernst. And Ernst was no giant, but he easily had more than six inches over the poor guy, who couldn’t have been more than five-foot-four. 

“I’ll roll ‘em up.”

Ernst just shrugged and went back to the tiny closet, pulling a pair of black tights from the dresser he had just finished filling. The boy stepped into the room a bit, looking around quizzically. “I see your rooms as small as mine. That’s cool. I thought I was gettin’ robbed, y’know?”

Ernst nodded, holding the ball of black cloth out to the other. “Where are you from?”

“California. Thanks.” He took the tights and gave a nod. “You’re from England, aren’t ya? Or… Is that Australia?”

“You were right on the English part. Grew up near Glenridding,” Upon seeing the boys, blank expression he chuckled. “You’re fine not knowing it. Many people don’t.”

“Yeah, sorry, man,” He chuckled before stuffing the tights in the pocket of his jeans and sticking out his hand. “My names Moritz Stiefel. I’m in room 304.”

“Ernst Robel, room 306,” The two shook hands and chuckled. “And you said Stiefel?” When Moritz nodded, Ernst continued. “I think we’re also locker neighbors in the changing quarters.”

“Good. Do you know how to work a combination lock? Because I don’t.”

  



	3. Chapter 3

1984

There wasn’t any conversation as students filed in from the first floor changing room to the second floor classroom. It was a huge, sprawling room, with mirrors lining two of the walls and windows lining the other. All across the hardwood floors, young women and a handful of young men milled about, looking for something to busy themselves with. Some stretched, some put on shoes and fixed their leotards, some just leaned on the wall, watching the others. Close to one of the mirrors,Ernst stretched, watching Mortiz fix himself in the mirror, the tights he had borrowed looking baggy and awkward on his short legs. Everything about him seemed a bit awkward, like nothing could quite fit right. His shoes came untied, his leotard slipped off his shoulders to reveal the soft, white skin beneath. 

“Hey, Moritz,” Ernst whispered up to the other, hoping his voice wouldn’t be noticed but suddenly realized it had been like screaming in the silent room. “Do you know who’s gonna be watching us? Like, placing us?”

He shook his head, looking around at the crowd of their peers. Everyone else seemed to be doing the same, nervously waiting for someone to come in and end the constant waiting with bright yellow numbers pinned to their chests. Ernst noted that Moritz was thirteen, how unfortunate. 

And almost on cue, they heard it. The sound of a tip of a cane echoing on the stone floor of the hallway. It started quiet, but it cut through the silence as it came closer and closer to the open double doors. Soon enough, the sound had clicked itself to the doorway, where a small woman stood holding it.

She was a proud looking woman, her chin high and her gaze sweeping over the students with a sort of benevolence. Two polished wooden sticks set her silver sprinkled blond hair into a tight bun. She walked further into the room, her cane practically booming against the wood. She didn’t seem old enough to need a cane, and she didn’t seem to use it for much more than slamming it onto the floor as she moved across the room.

Above the sound of the cane, she spoke to the fifty or so students, filling the room and staring at her with expectant gazes. “Good morning, first semesters!” After a scattered reply, she continued, now sitting on a stool at the front of the class. “My name is Rose Rilow. But Madame Rilow will work just fine.”

Suddenly, the room broke into hushed shock. Some gasped, others turned to whisper to their neighbors. Madame Rilow looked on at it all with a content gaze.

“Guess that answers your question just fine, huh?” Moritz scoffed, attempting to stand on his tip toes to see her over the crowd. 

After the whispers died down, Madame Rilow stood. She stood like anyone with their name on a building and an empire of dancers trained under them would. “Now. Get into four lines. I haven’t got all day.”

Most of the dancers hesitated, looking around awkwardly, not wanting to be the person to mess up in front of THE Madame Rilow. The first girl to spring into place, a long limbed pale girl with shaved red hair, stood like a member of royalty while the others formed behind and around her. Ernst about five or six people behind her, Moritz standing (and shaking) in the parallel line. 

The moment that the lines had formed, she began again, this time her vice cold and demanding as she ordered. “ Right foot chassé arabesque!” As those at the front of the line followed her orders after a quick stutter, she continued. “Pass through passé and prepare. Then double or triple pirouette, don’t do something you can’t you’ll look like an idiot. Plié chaîné into a sustained left fan kick, hold!” As the shaved head girl and the others in the front paused, their legs high in the air, Madame Rilow glanced to the others. “Are you all keeping track? Because I do not repeat myself.” She then sat back, returning to the others. “ Break into an attitude. Now slide into a step, step grande jeté. And finish!” 

Nervous and breathless, the first four allowed themselves to relax against the opposite wall, looking back at the rest like lambs to the slaughter. Madame’s Riley's eyes snapped up from the first victims to the new ones, waiting with sweaty palms across the floor. “Now you all have to do it on count. Next!”

Ernst found the front of the line coming closer and closer, leaving him with head spinning as the row before him moved gracefully across the floor and left him to follow. The first step out and he could feel himself shaking, threatening to lose balance with every movement as he lifted his arms and did his best to appear effortless. That was before he held his fan kick, giving him a chance to catch a breath and stop the constant movement of his brain. And then he saw her, the long, shaved head girl, her arms crossed tightly against her chest and an expression Ernst couldn’t place. It wasn’t a glare of hate, but it definitely wasn’t approval or joy. She seemed to be looking at Ernst like she knew what was going to happen, like she had seen this all before.

That’s when Ernst heard the loud thump directly to the right of him and his already quaking concentration was broken so he could turn to see Moritz fumbling to stand back up after falling to the ground. The smaller man, flushed bright red and scrambling upright, was trembling more than Ernst ever thought possible. Like all of his muscles were tensing and crying in unison. 

Then the others around him began to move forward, and so Ernst pulled himself from the scene occurring next to him and forced himself back into the dance, knowing in the back of his mind that Moritz was unravelling behind him. 

Madame Rilow didn’t even acknowledge Moritz’s spill. Statuesque, she continued to order them throughout the next hour. Breaking them into smaller groups, she had them perform a few short pieces of choreography that she had dictated. 

Everyone seemed to move like they had done it their entire life. With only six or seven years of actual training under his belt, Ernst felt like the runt of the litter. He had assumed that by the end of the placements, he wouldn’t be put in a section at all, that Madame Rilow would pluck him from the back of the herd like a wounded deer and make him pack his bags. 

That’s why he was shocked when his name was the first to be listed when Madame Rilow announced that she would be announcing the advanced section first, followed by the two intermediate section. 

“I know it may seem harsh,” She said when she saw the discomfort on the faces of her students, knowing that their skill level would be proclaimed to the class. “But that is what dance is. This is the first competition of many. You will be nothing but ranked and compared your entire career so get used to it.” A heavy sigh and her smile popped back up. “That being said, in no particular order, advanced: Sixteen, Robel. Twenty-Five, Balewa. Five, Renfree. Twenty-Nine, Smith. Fourty-Two, Nakamura. Thirty, Salinas. One, Neumann. Nine, Ricci. Thirteen, Stiefel. Thirty-Seven, Grady…”

Madame Rilow continued to rattle off names as Ernst turned to look at Moritz, who sat a few feet behind the other. Grinning ear to ear, he wriggled to catch Mortiz’s gaze. Moritz broke his anxious, wide eyed stare at the floor to look up at Ernst, but his trembling smile couldn’t match the excitement of Ernst and the others who had their names called. His eyes fell to the hardwood floor again, pulling his knees even closer to his chest.    
At least Ernst was proud.

Everyone seemed proud of themselves as they were dismissed and made the walk downstairs and into the changing rooms. Congratulating each other on a job well done, recovering from the shock of having their ranked section be verbally announced, some still talking about how they couldn’t believe that was THE Madame Rilow. Ernst couldn’t help but notice Moritz not entertain any conversation, walking separated from the rest with his eyes straight ahead. 

Upon arriving at the changing rooms and the mass of women split from the handful of men, it became obvious to everyone that Moritz was sitting aside, still in his leotard and those baggy tights, not changing, not showering, just sitting on the bench in front of his locker. He stared at it with an expression Ernst couldn’t place as he collected his tee shirt and jeans and tucked away to change in stalls. 

“Moritz, you alright?” He asked before leaving, but Moritz just nodded, his gaze not breaking. 

Through the slitted doors, he could hear footsteps and voices grow quieter and see the shadows of his classmates walk past and out of the room. Ernst wondered what was taking him so long as he attempted to fix his hair after pulling his head through the top of his white tee shirt.

He was still zipping up his jeans when he heard a loud metal slam come from the lockers outside the changing room door. The noise was immediately followed by a loud “Fuck”, cursed through gritted teeth. Ernst fumbled a bit to open the stall door and saw Moritz standing in front of his locker, breathing heavy. He held his fist with his other hand, rubbing the raw, red skin with his thumb. 

“Moritz! What the hell happened?” 

Moritz looked up in surprise, like he had forgotten Ernst was in there. He looked down at his wounded fist and claimed in a shaky voice, “Yeah, just… slammed my hand in the locker.”

That’s when Ernst saw the blood dripping from Moritz’s pale knuckles. “Moritz,” he said sternly, his gaze moving from the blood swelling in Moritz’s palm to his neighbor’s scared eyes, darting around the room desperately. “What happened?”

Holding his fist close to his stomach, Moritz winced and bent over his hands a bit, as if trying to shield Ernst’s gaze, “I dunno,” He said in a slight voice. “I just…” He took a deep, trembling voice and continued. “Madame Rilow saw me eat shit the first time I ever did anything for her. And I was shit the rest of placements too…” he shut his eyes tight. “I just don’t know why the fuck she wants to tourment me and put me in advanced.”

“Because you’re good, Mor-”

“Because I already embarrassed myself in front of her once, why not make me embarrass myself all semester,” He buried his face in his hands and Ernst could finally see the extent of the bleeding around his knuckles. It wasn’t too bad, but the skin seemed to glow red with ache. 

“Hey,” Ernst breathed out, packing his locker backup and hoisting his dance bag over his shoulder. “She’s been teaching for like a million years. She’s not wrong about someone being advanced.”

Moritz muttered something stubborn under his breath before Ernst held his hand out to him, nodding his head towards the door. “Let’s take you to the nurse.”

Hesitant, Moritz took Ernst hand and allowed himself to be pulled up to his feet. As the two boys left, Ernst demanding to carry Moritz’s bag along with his own, Ernst notice the new dent in Moritz’s locker that his fist had left. 

“I barely managed to get in here!” Moritz rambled as the two made their way down the almost barren hall. Saturdays meant no classes, and barely anyone in the main building. “I don’t get why she placed me in the advanced section if I’m just gonna make a fuckin’ fool of myself every class.”

“Nobody thinks they belong here!” Ernst attempted to reconcile the small man walking beside him. “I can promise you that everyone here thinks they’re shit compared to everyone else. But we wouldn’t even be here if we were bad. Or if we didn’t have the potential to-”

Ernst’s speech stopped with his body, halting suddenly at the bottom of the staircase. Even though the medical center was on the first floor, across the lobby, he paused when he looked up to see a figure he could recall coming down the grand, curved stairs. 

He stood out because, unlike the other few students milling about, he wasn’t in dance clothes. He wore a pressed, wrinkle free white dress shirt tucked into a pair of pressed, high waisted black slacks that formed tight around his tall, muscular figure. 

“What’s up?” Moritz asked, looking from Ernst to the mysterious man, walking down the stairs with his eyes off, looking at something else, completely unaware of the reality he was shaking for Ernst.

“Do you need something?” Hanschen asked when he arrived at the last few steps and noticed Ernst staring up at him. 

He looked just the same, Ernst couldn’t help but think. Just taller, more muscular. But he still spoke in that low, precise tone. His dark blue eyes were still intense and seemed to glow down at Ernst. But no expression change. No shock, no nostalgia, no remembrance on his sharp, regal features. 

“Are you looking for medical?” He asked at Ernst’s silence, raising his manicured brows at Moritz’s hand. When Moritz nodded, he pointed a finger across the lobby from them. “Down that hall. Can’t miss it.”

“Thanks,” Ernst said, making a final attempt to coax out any memory from Hanschen. If he did remember then he was good at acting like he didn’t. Hanschen just nodded, a small smile playing on his pale pink lips as he stepped around the two men and out the front doors, his oxfords tapping on the stone steps.

“Weird,” Moritz grunted and stepped to continue on. His companion didn’t move, Ernst remained frozen, staring at the door Hanschen had just closed. “Did you know him?”

Ernst shook his head, his normally tidy brown hair falling into his eyes just a bit as he spoke. “I thought I did.”


	4. Chapter 4

1979

School had just barely been dismissed for summer when Ernst sat at the top of the driveway of the house that had held the status of empty for years. His short legs had trouble touching ground as he straddled his bike at the base of the gravel decline, but on his tip toes he could peer down and see the brand new Dodge Charger filled with bags to be unpacked. A well put together man and woman walked back and forth from the car to the house, carrying bags and sharing conversation Ernst couldn’t hear. They didn’t seem to notice him, craning his neck to see more at the top of the hill. 

The house they were unpacking into was built into the hillside, looking out at the serene blue waters of Ullswater, where lazy sailboats seemed to dot the blue like little white freckles at the valley’s basin. A little white cottage with slanted roof and grey stone, it looked like any other house around their lonesome town, barely hanging onto the side of the massive lake, a dot for tourists to grab a coffee and a bite to eat. 

“Are you from around here?”

Or vacationers.

Ernst nearly screamed in fear as he turned to see the boy standing to the side of him. Ernst hadn’t even noticed the boy came up to him and jumped when he saw him, tall and looking over at Ernst like he was expecting a logical answer and not a yelp or fear. 

“Yeah,” Ernst tired to still his breathing as he looked the boy over. He wore a plaid short sleeve shirt, tucked into a pair of jeans with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. Blond hair was kept short and groomed back, unlike Ernst’s hair which was beginning to grow long and shaggy around his ears. He thought that he looked an awful lot like a banker or lawyer or something else boring and grown.

“Good,” the boy said, looking away from Ernst and sending his gaze up and down the practically empty street Ernst had just travelled down. “I’ve been walking around all afternoon and I haven’t seen a single person under the age of fifty.”

“They’re all in school,” Ernst said as he noticed the boy, who couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than him but spoke like it were twenty years, had an American accent. But not like in the cowboy movies, like in the game shows and the dramatic movies.

The generic American voice, but he spoke it low and slow, very particular. “You’re still in school?” he hummed, shrugging. “Unfortunate. I’ve been out for a week. It’s so boring.”

Ernst didn’t say much else, just watched the boy began to walk down the driveway, kicking at gravel as he walked. Ernst would have assumed the conversation was over if the boy didn’t speak, his eyes still looking out at the house. “But are any of them any good?”

“Who? The other kids?” The boy nodded. “I suppose they’re just fine.”

“They must be the worst.”

“Dreadful.”

The boy laughed, looking over at Ernst just for a moment, his eyes suddenly alive with something Ernst hadn’t seen before. It made him feel a bit giddy before the boy spoke, looking back to the waters. “Is it good to swim in?”

“Yeah. It’s nice if you don’t go out too far.”

“Fuck that,” The word made Ernst stare at the boy, who grinned a shiny white grin as if that was the response he wanted. “We should race across the bay.”

Ernst nodded in agreement, still a bit hesitant of the boy he had only just met. But he seemed to be genuine. And Ernst appreciated that. 

“Hansi! Come get your stuff!”

The boy shrugged a goodbye to Ernst before starting back down the driveway, his hands in his pockets. And he was really going to leave before Ernst called out to him in a slight voice. “Is that your name? Hansi?”

“It’s Hanschen,” He corrected over his shoulder, then said, very matter-of-fact. “I know, it’s an ugly name.”

Then Hanschen started his walk back up again, hesitating to leave completely before he heard Ernst clears his throat behind him. That made him freeze, listening intently to the boy speaking at the top of the hill, calling down in his light voice. “When can we go swimming? My name’s Ernst, by the way.”

He nodded to himself, not even turning to yell back. “Meet you at six, Ernst!” 

Ernst had never peddled faster down the narrow dirt roads back home, his uniform jacket flying behind him in his wake, ready to be discarded at the edge of the pebble shoreline come six o’clock. 

  
  



	5. Chapter 5

1984

Hanschen looked to peaceful in the green grass of the courtyard. He lounged, bathing in the remnants of September sun, sitting on a jacket he had thrown down over the ground. Occasionally, he turned his face back down towards his lap, going back to the large, academic looking book in his lap. Ernst noticed that he only turned his face back down when students would walk by. But as soon as they were gone, he went back to leaning back, his arms holding him up, muscles pressing through a blue collared shirt. Even from the second floor, Ernst had been watching long enough and closely enough to notice how his feet, crossed at the ankles and moving ever so slightly in the grass, as if swaying to a nonexistent tune. 

Ernst had apparently been watching a bit too long, because he was pulled from his study of Hanschen by a sharp pain against his shin and the feeling of his balance leaving him.

“Oh, hell!” He gasped, managing to catch himself before completely falling to the floor. His hand still grasping the barre, he noticed was the pair of short black heels barely a few inches from his face, and the end of a wooden cane accompanying them. 

Standing upright, Ernst’s face turned red as he came slowly face to face with Madame Rilow, looking at him with raised eyebrows. “Distracted at all, Mr. Robel?” She asked in her low, cynical tone. 

Shaking his head, he watched her retract the cane she had used to knock him off balance. Around him, the other students seemed mostly unphased, some watching from the corner of their eye as they continued the warm ups Madame Rilow had set for them to do. 

“No, Madame. I’m sorry.”

The woman nodded, turning on her heel to walk back towards the front of the room. Ernst wondered how he didn’t hear her coming in those heels. “I hope the first day isn’t too easy for you, Mr. Robel. Just imagine how bored you’ll be tomorrow.”

“Sorry, Madame,” Ernst repeated before attempting

to catch up with the others, halfway through a plié. 

But he would be lying if he said he didn’t keep trying to catch glances of Hanschen in the grass throughout the two hour class. He just seemed so right, lying there, the sun bouncing off of his already honey golden skin. He ached to be out there in the midday buzz, laying in the grass and letting his worries burn away with his skin. He ached to know Hanschen, or at least someone who looked an awful lot like Hanschen, like he knew him when he was thirteen. He used to be able to know Hanschen better than himself, know his quirky pink ribbon smile and his strong gaze that looked at you as if you were always either speaking gibberish or poetry. Or both, knowing their quiet evenings and how they devolved into laughter and gazes of admiration by the time they were supposed to go home.

He didn’t bother himself on HOW it was Hanschen, but he prayed to God that might exist that it was him. Ernst didn’t care if he was just a ghost, haunting Ernst all the way to the United States. He just wanted it to be the boy he knew.

But every moment seemed to make him more unsure. 

Ernst thought that Hanschen would have remembered him. It didn’t make sense to him how Hanschen could look at him as if he were any other nobody roaming

the halls. Ernst has spent what felt like forever looking at himself in the mirror that morning trying to detect what was so different, what had changed so much in those five years that made him completely unrecognizable. 

He had learned how to cut his hair to what he thought looked good, a few well managed waves barely sticking out past his ears. He had the same dark, deep tanned skin, same eyes, a better smile with a bit of aid from braces. Maybe it was the height. Hanschen has towered over Ernst that summer, laughing when he watched him keep pace on runs around the shore. Now, after a god given growth spurt at sixteen, Ernst came in at a bit above six feet tall and his long features were nothing like the small boy attempting to keep up with Hanschen that summer. 

But even then, it was still Ernst. At least he thought it was. 

Or maybe, Hanschen had just forgotten him. He couldn’t imagine a world where he could forget about Hanschen. But apparently he lived in a world where Hanschen could forget him. The thought made him rush out of class the moment it was over, barely pausing to put on his tennis shoes and put a jacket on over his leotard. Rushing down the stairs, he pushed past the crowd of other students, praying that Hanschen, or the Hanschen lookalike, hadn’t moved in a few minutes he had taken his eyes off of him. 

And he hadn’t. He was still where Ernst had left him, reading with a calm, content expression. He hadn’t quite decided what he wasn’t going to do, but he was charging toward the reclining man like he knew. And he would have been right on top of him, vomiting out whatever he could think of, in a matter of seconds, if a short form didn’t pop into his path, immediately stopping him dead in the grass. 

“Ernst!” Wendla chirped as his brain caught up to his eyes and he realized that his target was still a few yards away from him, blissfully unaware that he was being watched for the last hour. “How’s your first day of classes going?” 

Ernst attempted to nod politely at her. “Oh, it’s going great, Wendla. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I-”

Apparently, in the moment it took for him to look down at Wendla’s shining face and smile back an excuse, a different form had approached Hanschen. A slim, dark skinned girl with long braids held back by a bandana stood above Hanschen, who was know sitting upright and smiling at her like she was the sun after a flood. Ernst couldn’t quite hear the conversation, but he could hear Hanschen’s voice come alive with smiling conversation.

Peering over her shoulder at the two, Wendla sighed and shook her head to Ernst,”Come on, let’s get some coffee.”

The two walked over to the small cafe across the courtyard and ordered between their small talk. So far class is good, finding your way around gets easier, the other teachers aren’t as strict of Madame Rilow. 

“That’s her son, you know,” Wendla said when the topic of the school’s headmistress came up. She nodded her head towards the window and facing the courtyard, where Hanschen and the braided girl shared what looked like rousing conversation. Hanschen was chuckling aimlessly at something, his fingers spinning between blades of grass. 

“Hmm?” Ernst’s eyes snapped back up to the blond man he beginning to assume more and more that we was a look-alike.

“Yeah, Madame’s Rilow’s son, Hanschen,” As Wendla said his name, Ernst nodded. He attempted to contain any joy that dared show itself. So it was the boy he had known when he was barely old enough to know himself. But that just made him wonder why he hadn’t recognized Ernst, and that just made it all hurt more. He turned to look down at his mug of apple cider and gazed into the soft golden bubbles as they appeared and disappeared. “He doesn't go here but he’s been hanging out around campus as long as anyone can remember. His sisters are two of your instructors.”

“You’re kidding,” Ernst’s voice came out flat, his focus on Hanschen, now standing to walk alongside Martha back into the main building, away from Ernst once more. 

She shook her head, studying Ernst’s pleading face as she continued. “And he’s been doing that as long as anyone can remember too.” When Ernst turned back to her, she nodded. “Every girl here goes through her Hanschen phase. Most of the guys too. And he likes to convince them that they’re important too… Asshole.” The last part was muttered under her breath before taking a sip of tea. She saw Ernst sink down into his seat, his face falling to a frown. “Sorry if you got your hopes up.”

Ernst shook his head and took a long sip. “I didn’t I just…” A long breath and he watched Hanschen’s form disappear into the doorway across the grass. “I just thought he was someone else, that’s all.”

The creaky, twin size mattress at Ernst’s dorm seemed extra stiff, extra empty that night and most nights following the discovery of Hanschen. And he would lay there on the barren bed and wonder to himself how one could lose the memories he held so dear. 

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

1984

Mortiz’s footsteps could be heard down the hall. They fell heavier than Ernst’s as two pair rehearsed the complex set of turns and leaps Melitta and Thea had taught them that day, the pair of sisters much more relaxed than their mother, but expecting much more much faster. THat entire morning Ernst had watched Moritz fumble over his feet.

“And they’re moves I know, that’s the thing!” Moritz whined as he stretched on the bar that lined the wall opposite the door. He could just barely get a short leg up on the wooden bar and was bending himself in half to reach it. “I know how to do them but when it’s my turn to get out there I can’t barely fucking walk, y’know?”

From his place in front of the mirror, Ernst chuckled as he moved through the arm positions, double and triple checking that everything was perfect. “You have performance anxiety but you’re at a performance based school?”

Moritz rolled his eyes, moving his leg back to the floor and raising the other up. “Ernst, I have every type of anxiety. If I tried to avoid getting anxious I’d have to be dead.”

Ernst laughed as he moved away from the mirror and towards Moritz, a black leotard clinging to his form and making him look so small he could disappear. He wore a pair of short, bright red shorts that showed off exactly how pale and oddly hairless he was, at least to Ernst. He was halfway wondering if it was rude to ask him if he shaved when Mortiz stood upright, looking up at Ernst expectantly. “So are we just gonna sit around all day and talk about how nervous I get talking to the waiter or are we gonna dance?”

Ernst just shook his head and watched Moritz walk over to the record player in the corner of the room, where he slid into place the record they had picked up from reception. It steadily ticked the same boring note over and over again, a metronome for them to judge themselves by as they prepped in the mirror. 

“One, two, three, four,” Ernst sighed out, watching Moritz crack his neck and shake out some nerves beside him. “Five, six, seven, eight!”

Immediately, both boys lunged from fifth position up to an Échappé and landing in second. Ernst watched Moritz quake for only a moment before, almost automatically, the two lept into a temps levé. The pair held their breath as the leaned into a pair of arabesques, both of their legs shaking as they slowly raised their leg out behind them, as straight as they could. A few pirouettes and the two were holding their own attitudes, sweating and staring at themselves in the mirror before they dropped their poses and looked to one another, panting.

“Fuckin’ shit!” Moritz shook his head after the fifth run of the routine. Dripping with sweat, he slumped over to his water bottle sitting up against the wall. “I think I’m gonna pass out during class on Friday.”

“She’s gonna make us do it more than that!” Ernst tried to conceal the fact that he was also struggling to catch his breath.

After a few long sips of water, Moritz shook his head, stiff black curls flying around behind a red headband. “Then I guess you’re gonna make us do that like a million more times.”

“I mean, it won’t hurt!” Ernst was still smiling at Moritz when the door to the studio opened. In it’s doorway, a man stood under the harsh fluorescents of the hallway. Arms crossed tightly over a chest dressed in a sleek grey button up, the man entered the room. It was the teacher that Wendla had introduced to Ernst’s group on the very first day of orientation. 

Mister Gabor seemed to waltz into the room, kicking his feet out in front of him as if had expected them there. “Out.” 

Ernst and Moritz shared a look of disbelief before looking back to Mister Gabor. A little smile playing at his lips as he, almost playfully pointed to the door. He just seemed to relish in their shock. “Get out. I need the room.”

“Go to reception and get your own room, dude,” Moritz was quick to say to the man before turning back to the mirror. “We have this one ‘til eight-thirty.” 

The man cleared his throat, annoyance dripping into his tone. “Faculty gets priority for the studios.”

Ernst stayed quiet, watching Moritz turn and laugh. “You’re trying to convince me you’re faculty? Can you even drive?”

Mister Gabor looked young, around the same age as Ernst and Moritz, but not young enough for the ribbing Moritz was putting him through. “Just get out before I have to take your names and report you to education for disrespect.”

“Come on, Moritz,” Ernst made his way to grab his dance bag, keeping his eyes on Mister Gabor’s suddenly smug expression. “He’s not fucking with us.” 

Moritz slumped forward, picking up his own bag and following Ernst out the door. “See you boys in class!” Mister Gabor’s voice was chipper as the door closed behind them and Moritz turned to Ernst with a scowl. 

“Let’s go get some fucking ice cream.”

Ernst nodded and complied to Moritz’s request, the pair walking the block away from the school to the seven-eleven on the corner. The entire time, Moritz bickered with himself under his breath about Mister Gabor’s bullshit. 

We were almost back to campus when Ernst spotted him. Through the warm light peering from the window of a little italian restaurant, is eye caught the gleam of boyish golden hair. That’s when he stopped, his gaze settled on Hanschen standing on the other side of the street, kicking aimlessly at some crack in the sidewalk with the two of his polish oxfords. Ernst couldn’t make out his words, but he could hear his polite laughter and low, flirty tone as he spoke to the much smaller girl standing beside him. 

“If he weren’t hot he wouldn’t get away with that shit. If he looked like a normal human and not some summer camp counselor of the Gods and are you even listening to me, Ernst?” Moritz, who had managed to wander a few more steps without noticing that his companion stopped, turned to see where he was staring. “Oh shit, there’s that dude we saw.”

“That’s Hanschen…” Ernst found himself muttering, almost on instinct as he studied the girl, noticing that she was not the braided girl from earlier, but a much smaller, mousy looking blond girl with a big pair of circular glasses on her nose. She was smiling and blushing up at Hanschen as if he was the answer to her prayers. 

“Who?” Moritz stepped back to his friend, craning his neck to stare at the couple. “Weird name. You know him?”

“Thought I did,” Ernst’s thoughts trailed off as he watched Hanschen point in the direction opposite of the campus, looking to the girl for approval before the two began to walk off that way and away from Ernst, his arm draped lazily over her shoulder. 

Moritz, unaware of any seriousness that the situation might have, chuckled and nudged his elbow into Ernst’s ribs. “How the fuck do you THINK you know someone?”

“I don’t know,” Ernst attempted to turn to walk away after watching Hanschen and the blond turn the corner. But Moritz blocked his path, getting on his tiptoes to put his pale face up in Ernst’s, or at least closer to. 

“How do you not know? What the hell, dude?”

Ernst shrugged his dance bag back onto his shoulder and stepped around Moritz. But almost immediately he heard quick footsteps following behind him as Moritz skittered to his side. “Ernst? What the fuck?”

“Can we just drop this?” Ernst signed out of frustration before feeling Moritz yank on his shoulder, stopping the two once more. 

His arms crossed indignantly, Moritz looked up at Ernst with expectant eyes. “Come on, Ernst. Something’s going on. Something’s cloggin’ your noggin’.”

“What-ing my what?” Ernst managed to chuckle, his eyes darting from Moritz to the corner that Hanschen had turned down, hoping to see him return any moment. “Listen, it’s nothing. I just…” 

A long sigh, Moritz reached out to nudge his shoulder, “Ernst, buddy, you don’t just stop in the middle of the road and stare at some dude for like a full minute for no reason.” 

That’s when Ernst crumbled. Lit by the soft white of the overhead lamplight, he took one last look towards the direction of Hanschen and his date before stating. “I knew him back when we were kids. He came to my hometown for a summer.”

“Wow, what a small world!” Moritz turned to crane his neck and see if he could catch a glimpse of Hanschen before looking back to his companion. “Wait, so like what happened?”

Another shrug, Ernst began walking back to campus and Moritz followed alongside him. “He left at the end of summer. And now he just looks at me like I’m a stranger. I think he’s forgotten about me.”

“So you two were close, huh?” Ernst nodded. His hands stuffed into the pockets of his oversized hoodie, Moritz shook his head. “Maybe you just look different! Maybe he doesn’t recognize you.”

“I haven’t changed that much. And I recognized him in a heartbeat.”

After staring down at his feet for a few moments, Moritz chuckled. “Maybe he’s just an asshole.”

“Most likely.”

There was a little, thin laugh between the two before Ernst looked back to Moritz, his gaze heavy with hopelessness. “I’m starting to think I dreamt it all. Because I’m sure that’s him. It couldn’t have been anyone else.”

“Then you have a hella good imagination.”

Ernst couldn’t help but laugh at Moritz’s crooked smile, beaming with the joy of having someone to laugh with. And even if his bandage wrapped knuckles still ached from time to time, the evenings like this were enough to make him forget. 

  
  



	7. Chapter 7

1979

“O most dear mistress,The sun will set before I shall discharge. What I must strive to do.” From his seat on the creaky twin bed, Hanschen sat up, looking over to Ernst expectantly. He scowled when he saw Ernst sitting slumped in his desk chair, aimlessly spinning himself with his extended leg. “Ernst, you’re not even looking at the page.”

“Huh, guess I’m not,” Ernst mused, his gaze dropping from their study of the lake from Hanschen’s bedroom window to the copy of The Tempest sitting on his chest. He searched the page for a few moments, noticing Hanschen fold his legs beneath himself impatiently before reading, “If you'll sit down,I'll bear your logs the while: pray, give me that; I'll carry it to the pile.”

His voice was disjointed and awkward. It had no flow to it like Hanschen’s had. It sounded like he was speaking a forgein language, and doing it stiffly at that. But Hanschen had no time to critique, he just waved it off and began his own part. The words sat comfortably in his mouth, Ernst thought, he was made for something so elegant. “No, precious creature; I had rather crack my sinews, break my back,” His eyes skirted up, checking to see that Ernst was still focusing on the pages before continuing. “Than you should such dishonour undergo, While I sit lazy by.”

“What are we doing after this?”

“That isn’t the line, Ernst.”

A long sigh and the boy slumped over, folding his knees to his chest and muttering to the ground, “Can we do something else just for a bit? Go for a ride or something? I’m tired of reading.”

“You picked what we did yesterday,” Hanschen stated indignantly, watching Ernst’s brown hair sway and hang over his face as he spoke. 

“This isn’t even English!” Ernst suddenly sat bolt upright, tossing the copy of The Tempest that Hanschen let him borrow onto the bed. 

Hanschen just shook his head and picked up the book, making sure the spine didn’t bend or wrinkle. “It’s a lot easier to read with someone than to read alone.”

He shoved the book back out, holding it out to Ernst. A little sway of the spinning chair, and he took it back, a frown playing at his face. Hanschen tried his best to hold back a grin as he leaned back onto the bed, long, pale, bare legs stretching out over the blankets. “Go on, Ernst. From your line. Top of the page.”

With a grunt, he continued. “It would become me As well as it does you: and I should do it With much more ease; for my good will is to- But why do I have to read the girl’s part?”

Hanschen sighed, bringing a hand up to cradle his forehead. Ernst thought it was a bit dramatic, but still listened as Hanschen grumbled. “Next scene you can play a guy, alright?”

“But why-”

“Back in Shakespeare’s day every part was played by men,” Hanschen stated. “So don’t complain because you’re not the first guy to play Miranda.”

A little pause, Ernst kicked softly at the foot of the bed, Hanschen stared up at the spinning ceiling fan as if it were the night sky. There was no tension, just no words until Ernst spoke up, his voice slight. “All the girls were played by guys?”

“Everyone. Women weren’t allowed to perform.”

“And the kissing-”

“Men.”

More quiet. Ernst found his gaze grazing over Hanschen before going back to stare out the window. He thought for a moment he heard Hanschen hum something, his foot twirling to his imaginary beat. 

“Do you think they liked it?”

Hanschen shrugged, hiding his face in the book, as if something very very thrilling had just occurred on the pages and he had to study it closely. “Sure. Some must’ve. Some guys like that sort of thing.”

“That’s strange,” Ernst respond without even thinking, the words falling out like a kick to the head, sudden, jarring, and leaving him confused.

Hanschen looked over, one eyebrow quirked up in confusion. But he just shook his head, the ghost of a blush across his cheeks as he tisked, “Not that strange, Ernst. Christ.”

Below them, in the bright midday sun, countless sailboats buzzed around the blue waters. Along with canoes full of excited children and a few dozen swimmers that looked like ants. You could see the whole lake from the window of Hanschen’s room. Except one little cove of the lake, tucked behind rolling hills, the only place private from the family’s sweeping gaze.  
Ernst wanted to be out there, among the tourists and locals enjoying the day in the waters and along the stony shore. 

He cursed the fact that he agreed to let Hanschen have a say on what they did. 

“It would become me, As well as it does you: and I should do it, With much more ease; for my good will is to it,” Ernst’s voice cracked a but he continued, struggling with the clunky language. “And yours it is against. You look wearily.”

He could have sworn he saw Hanschen smile before he spoke the next lines. “No, noble mistress;'tis fresh morning with me When you are by at night. I do beseech you-- Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers--What is your name?”


	8. Chapter 8

1984

Ernst thought that he would have figured out how to run by the time he was eighteen. Since becoming a dancer, he felt he had total autonomy of his body. At any moment he could position any joint, move any finger to an exact degree, he lived in the exact science of ballet and considered himself fairly good at it.

But when it came to running across the courtyard, that all flew out the window. An onlooker would have thought that he had only recently learned how to run and just yesterday got this set of legs, moving in a wild, reckless, feet first storm across the dewy morning grass. He nearly slipped a few times, flinging his long limbs and catching himself just before he lost all control.

But it wasn’t enough, flinging himself around the corner, he knew it wasn’t enough. The hallways were already empty, the sound of music had already started to echo from some doors. He checked his watch. 8:59. Maybe, just maybe, he could make it.

He realized this wasn’t true when he saw the door to Melitta and Thea’s class close before he could even make it to the top of the steps. His cry of “No, Fuck, No!” Echoing down to the lobby beneath, where the women at the front desk peered upward at the mezzanine, where Ernst had collapsed at the top of the stairs, his head in his hands and his back against the spotless, white wall. “Fuck…”

On the first day, when they made it VERY clear that lateness was not an option and their attendance policy was strict, Ernst played very little attention. He was punctual, he thought, it would never apply to him. 

Not until Wednesday at least, when he was panting on the ground and debating whether or not to just go back to sleep or die. 

“Sleep in?”

Ernst, who had been busy staring straight ahead in self pity, looked up to see Hanschen coming up the steps. He stopped just one away from the top where Ernst was sitting and looked down at him, practically stoned faced with one eyebrow quirked up in curiosity.

Ernst rolled his eyes, at least he was amusing, he thought before responding in a flat tone. “Yeah. Let’s say that.”

Seeming even more intrigued, Haschen came all the way to the top of the stairs to stand above the young man who paid him no attention. Why bother when he doesn’t even know who I am, Ernst had at least assumed. He rested his head in his hand and shook it, watching Hanschen from the corner of his eye, he crossed his arms over his broad chest and watched intently. “Are you a first semester?”

“Yes.”

“Is this your first absence?”

“Yes.”

“Well you’re in luck,” Hanschen leaned against the railing, looking away from Ernst to peer down at the few people still wandering around the room below them. “You’re allotted two more until you’re removed from the class. And my sisters won’t be too harsh on you.”

Hanschen finally seemed to notice that Ernst was alive. And all it took was watching him collapse at the top of the stairs. But Ernst still shrugged, too tired to be sad like he was before. Now all he felt was disappointment when he looked up to see Hanschen staring down at him with gentle eyes. Still, no recognition in his eyes. 

“Thea and Melitta are you sisters?” 

Hanschen nodded, crossing his ankles and watching with amusement. “Older sisters. By three years.” He raised his eyebrows, waiting for a response from Ernst. When there was none, he just continued. “Madame Rilow is my moth-”

“I know.”

Hanschen, who was busy rifling around his pocket for a cigarette and a lighter, stop suddenly, grinning just slightly before speaking. “You know, huh? Have you been doing my research?”

“I know how to ask a question.”

He just shrugged, Ernst’s snappy tone stopped him in his tracks for a second before he continued, lighting the cigarette hanging in the corner of his mouth before speaking. “Do you have a name, first semester? Or should I know it already because you already know so much about me?”

“You should. We know each other.”

He paused in a little puff of smoke, his eyes roaming around Ernst like he was seeing him for the first time. He took in everything for the first time, unlike before when he had been catching only sideways glances at Ernst before looking at his hands, the doors, the floor below, the large, domed glass ceiling above them. Now he was looking at Ernst, taking in the long legs he had pulled up to his chest and the thin, black tights that covered them. How his still damp hair fell into his face, over big, doe-like eyes. He took him in but still, nothing. He stood there with the same bemused gaze as he asked. “How do we know each other?”

“What do you do during the holidays?” Ernst looked up, shaking the hair from his face and watching as Hanschen’s face screwed up in curiosity. 

“It all depends,” Hanschen said before taking a drag and expelling it in his words. “My mother likes to travel. She took us all over. To India twice. I’ve spent plenty of summers in Italy. Once Mexico. A few time to Greece.”

“Did you ever come to England?” Ernst’s chin tilted up, just slightly, so the light above them could catch on his freckles, light brown over tan skin. He had been thinking over and over how he would say this if given the chance. He rehearsed it in the shower, thought it over on his walks to class, played it in his mind as he drifted to sleep, when the memories would come back and he would assure himself for the hundredth time that it HAD to be Hanschen, his Hanschen. He had become so sure of the fact that it was the Hanschen he had known that this moment felt inevitable.

He was just mad he had to miss a class for it. 

Hanschen shrugged, “Is that where you’re from?” Ernst nodded. Hanschen paused a few seconds and nodded. “Yes. Once or twice. The countryside I believe. But I must’ve been young, very young.”

“Have you been to Ullswater?”

That’s when it clicked, at least for Hanschen. His gaze became familiar, a smile developing slowly and allowing Ernst to see the dimples indented on either cheek. He seemed a bit proud of himself for having figured out something that was fed to him with a spoon. “My God, Ernst Robel!”

A wave of relief. Ernst nodded and before he knew it, Hanschen was forcefully pulling him to his feet. “Damn it, Ernst! Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

“Because you didn’t recognize me.” His hand was being shaken and Hanschen’s gaze seemed fond, but it wasn’t what it should have been. Something was off.

Ernst didn’t know what he expected. He knew what he wanted. He wanted Hanschen to pull him in, like he had wanted back when he was thirteen and didn’t know what it meant to be gay. He wanted to be by someone who meant it. He wanted things to click into place without him realizing it was out of place. 

Hanschen shook his head and did none of that. He just nodded and smiled a quiet, polite smile that any polite colleague would give another, careful not to let the still smoldering cigarette fall from his lips as he spoke. “I’m forgetful, very forgetful. How long ago was that?”

“I was thirteen.”

Hanschen shook his head, “Feels like it was much longer!” he let go of the tight grip on Ernst’s hand and put his hands into his pockets. He leaned back once more, the thrill of the moment seemingly gone. Nothing had changed about him, how he spoke or how he held himself was just the same as before. “What a summer, huh?”

“What a summer…” Ernst searched his face for something, anything that told him Hanschen remembered. He wanted a sign, a nod to the fact that for a summer at thirteen years old, Ernst thought he was everything an anything. For the few months Hanschen was in his life, he controlled it without even meaning to. But nothing. Hanschen just smiled politely and didn’t think a thing of it. 

Ernst was tired of thinking ‘maybe he doesn’t remember’. 

“I didn’t know you danced, Ernst.”

“You remember that?” Hanschen nodded innocently. He didn’t ask why he remembered that and not meant the summer to Ernst. “I didn’t dance when we knew each other. I started later that year.”

“You must’ve gotten pretty good pretty fast then. It takes most people a decade to be good enough to get in.”

Ernst shrugged, picking up his duffle bag from the floor. “Must have, huh?”

“I’ll have to see about that,” Hanschen took a drag and turned to walk away, down past the closed classroom doors. “Hope you make it to your next class, Ernst.”

“Where are you off to?”

Hanschen shrugged. “Anywhere. To kill time. I don’t go here, you do.”

And then he was gone, off down the hall, the heels of his shoes clicking along the marble with a sort of confidence that gave Ernst chills. He watched for a moment, feeling the weight of not knowing leave his shoulder, but the weight of realization settling on them quickly.

He remembered Ernst. How could he forget everything else? Or did it mean as little to him as he did.

Ernst decided to go back to bed.


	9. Chapter 9

1984

Ernst didn’t find his Techniques class all that bad. But it wasn’t half as pleasant as some of the upper semesters had painted it. Most of the students he had spoken to about the class praised the teacher endlessly, claiming he was the genius of their time and how lucky Ernst was to study beneath him.

So he expected something bigger than just a lean, smirking young man with a few loose brown hairs falling into his face. He stood proud, hands on his hips as he greeted the class. He strutted the room for the first few minutes of class, seeming to appreciate the fact that all eyes were on him. He could easily understand why people might like him. He was charming, fairly clever, and handsome, Ernst would be the first to admit that Mister Gabor was attractive. But not handsome enough to get away with the strictness.

“Gabor?” The tall, French girl called in the middle of their two hour class. From across the studio, the teacher stood up straight and looked over his shoulder to the spot where she stood in the center of the room.

“Fourth position, open!” He demanded. Simultaneously, all the students shifted their feet into the position he had called. He moved quickly across the sea of dancers, this time, instead of slowly critiquing the students as he had been doing so far in the class, he moved directly to the girl, head high. “Feet another half inch further. Your back heel isn’t completely aligned.” He looked up at her, “Don’t look at your feet. You should be able to feel it.”

“Sorry,” She muttered before Mister Gabor, looking very content with himself, clasped his hands behind his back and walked back through the mass of students, looking at their feet but still not saying anything until he cleared his throat to loudly proclaim.

“Don’t disrespect me until you are better than me,” He said, his low, thrumming voice echoing along the bare walls and mirrors. “The day your skill surpasses mine, you may call me whatever you wish. Until then, you may call me Mister Gabor and that is it. Salinas, straighter back.”

There were some glances between the students while Mister Gabor’s back was turned, raised eyebrows and sarcastic shrugs in disbelief at how fast his tone had changed. Ernst turned his head to look across the group to Moritz, to roll his eyes at how self-important ‘Mister’ Gabor was, but saw his friend instead looking down, shaking his head with a silent chuckle of disbelief. 

“Fourth, closed!”

“Mister?” He said, just beneath his breath, thinking the shuffling of feet would cover his muttering. “Can you even drink?”

“What was that?”

Ernst could pinpoint the exact moment all the color left Moritz’s face. Still looking down, his eyes widened in realization and his body froze. Maybe, he must’ve thought, if he stood completely still, he wouldn’t be noticed. 

“Stiefel? Did you say something?”

“Fuck…” He muttered before looking back up. Ernst remembered how red is face was before, when he had stumbled during placements. Now, it was colorless and sullen as it turned to Mister Gabor, who was staring at him from across the group, right next to where Ernst was standing and trying not to stare. “No, Mister Gabor.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes, Mister Gabor.”

Mister Gabor tilted his head to the side, taking in Moritz before a smile broke over his scowling face. “I’m not deaf, Stiefel. I’m old enough to be your teacher, but not that old, now am I?”

“No, Mister Gabor.”

“Then would you care to do some push ups for the class?”

Moritz didn’t respond, he just moved to the front of the class, his head down until he got on the floor in front of the mirror. “I’ll tell you when to stop,” Mister Gabor said when Mortiz looked up expectantly. 

That didn’t come for quite some time. Ernst could see the smugness on Mister Gabor’s face as he strolled lazily around the studio, critiquing the others with an easy voice. He smiled every few seconds to Moritz, who’s frail arms were shaking beneath the thick fabric of his sweater. It wasn’t until Mister Gabor had decided to move on that he called out to Moritz that he could stop in a sugary-sweet voice. 

He watched Moritz, sweaty and red faced, sit up against the mirror and attempt to catch his breath. He smiled before looking down to Moritz with amused eyes, “But that was still pretty funny, Stiefel.” He looked away from Moritz’s surprised face and announced to the rest of the class. “Alright, everyone, to the barre.”

Moritz didn’t open his mouth again until class ended. As most of the other students left the room, busying themselves with conversation, he approached Ernst and sat on the floor beside him, “God, what an asshole.”

“Who? Mister Gabor?”

“‘Mister’ fucking Gabor,” He took a long sip of his water bottle. “Ya think he gets off on that sorta stuff?”

“He must have had issues with authority growing up.”

Ernst and Moritz, who both thought they were alone in the studio, looked up suddenly to see the tall French girl standing beside the cubbies, sorting through her bag with a casual air. She looked up, content to see their surprised faces before continuing, “Thank you for that, Stiefel.”

“For what?” Moritz glanced at Ernst nervously before standing, the girl approaching as she spoke.

“For taking his attention away,” She chuckled, but just slightly. “I felt like everyone was staring at me.”

It was hard not to stare at her. Ernst had never seen a girl that wasn’t a rockstar with hair so short, shaved close to the head you could barely tell it was a vibrant red. She held it proudly though, her head high showing off the safety pins she wore like earrings. Ernst remembered the whispers about her after placements, how some girls saw a tattoo of a butterfly on her arm and didn’t shut up about it for a day. 

They said she was stuck up, but she didn’t seem that way when she was smiling at Ernst and Mortiz. To them, she seemed much more like a rockstar. 

“I feel like that all the time,” Moritz shifted nervously from one foot to the other, a little smile revealing the crater like dimples in his cheeks. “But I didn’t mean to or anything, y'know. Like, I wasn’t thinking about-”

“Well thank you anyway,” She ran her long, slim, fingers over the buzzcut before holding it out to Moritz to shake. “I am Ilse.”

“Moritz.”

“Stiefel fits you better. You look like a Stiefel.”

Moritz quirked a smile at her pronunciation before his cheeks flushed pink. He couldn’t recall the last time someone took enough interest in him to decide what fits him. 

When she looked down to Ernst, still lacing up his tennis shoes, he waved. “I’m Ernst. Nice to meet you.”

He instinctively extended his hand, which Ilse took as a request to be helped to his feet and took hold of it, pulling him up with more strength than Ernst had imagined she would have.

“You two are really good, by the way. You are both very talented.” 

“Oh, fuck,” Moritz fumbled with picking up his bag. “I...No, I don’t think-”

“You’re real good too!” Ernst stood between the two, offering Ilse a smile and praying Moritz would shut up. “I noticed you during placements you were amazing.”

“He means intimidating.”

Ilse laughed, beginning her walk towards the exit and nodding at the other two to follow. “It is the accent, huh? People think I am terrifying because of the accent.”

“Yeah, where are ya from?” Moritz asked as the trio made their way out of the studio and into the sun filled hallway

“Lyon. But I like it a lot more here. The girls here are very hot.”

Moritz and Ernst both paused unintentionally, freezing there in the middle of the hallway and looking at one another before Ilse looked back to them, a wide smile on her face. “What? Is that rude to say?” Her smile faded before she continued. “Oh, sorry. I did not mean to offend, I-”

“No, sorry, it’s -”

Ernst was interrupted by Moritz’s giggle, shaking his head before speaking up. “It’s just funny, y'know. Ernst, it's like ya attract homosexuals. We’re two for three here.” Ilse’s smile returned, relaxing once more.

“Three for three, actually. Takes one to know one,” The two looked at Ernst for a moment, wondering if he was kidding. When he shrugged and smiled back at their stares, they broke into smiles too.

“We better start a club,” Ilse giggled. The three started walking again in the direction of the courtyard, all allowing themselves to be a little wide-eyed in these new revelations. 

Moritz looked at the two with his crooked grin blossoming. “What do we call it? Rilow Academy Homosexuals?”

“Queens and Dykes only?” Ilse suggested. A little ripple of laughter.

“I wouldn’t call myself a queen,” Mortiz chuckled. “Is there a term for ‘Gay and in Constant Distress’?”

“Doesn’t have a ring to it. ” Ernst stated as they reached the exit to the building. In the grass, other students milled about, enjoying their Friday afternoons out of class. 

Ilse stopped, turning to the two men before proclaiming “I am glad to have met you both. People back home rarely responded favorably to this sort of thing.”

“Very glad to have met you too!” Moritz was giddy to reply. The possibility of friendship made his face light up. Especially anyone as badass as Ilse. 

“What are you two up to now?” When the young men looked at each other with blank expressions and shrugs, she continued. “Come up to my room. I think I am going to order Chinese.”

“Ugh, the Chinese food here is shit. It’s so much better in California.”

“Then I expect you will be the one to cook for us?”

“Oh fuck no.”

Ernst laughed at the pair and followed them through the grass.


	10. Chapter 10

1979

“Where are we going, again?”

Everything was speed when Ernst tore down the road, pebbles kicking up to hit the spokes of his wheels like the tinking of a toy piano. Normally, he didn’t like to ride this fast. He would ride leisurely, his fear of crashing overtaking any want to fit in like the other boys who sped down the narrow roads. But for some reason, he didn’t care now. 

“You’ll see!”

It was just more for the thrill. Some part of this felt scandalous, but he knew it wasn’t. It couldn’t be more than two boys riding through the hillside. If anyone looked in on the scene, they wouldn’t be able to see how fast Ernst’s heart was racing, how reckless the adrenaline was making him. They wouldn’t be able to see anything besides his wide smile as he chased after Bobby.

The slightly older boy was standing up on the pedals as he glided down the hill, looking over his shoulder every so often to make sure Ernst was still close behind, fumbling and bumbling with his pedals carelessly.

This continued for what felt like forever to Ernst, as some unexplained part of him demanded that this was important. He couldn’t say how he thought it was, but he felt he knew it was important. He could only think of how big, impactful, and important it all was, whatever this was. He thought that over and over until Bobby stopped, seemingly out of nowhere. Ernst screeched to a stop beside him, at the base of a grass covered hill. 

“What? What is it?”

Bobby ignored him at first, tossing his bike to the ground beside the road and began to climb up the slope. Ernst did the same, following up the slope that was a bit too steep for a leisurely walk. Bobby didn’t even respond until the third or fourth time Ernst asked what they were doing, that’s when he turned back, smirking like a child with a secret. “You can see everything from up here, Ernst.”

Ernst hadn’t even noticed the view until Bobby mentioned it. He turned and saw the whole valley cast in the early sunset’s shadows. Orange and pink cast over the vast waters and down the valleys and over the far away rooftops. Ernst didn’t even notice how far they were from town until now, spotting the roof of his own house like a little red dot.

“Whoa,” He muttered after a few moments of awe. He didn’t know how he could live in a place all his life and still be amazed by the beauty of it all. “Do you come up here often?”

Bobby shrugged, sitting down on the grass with the sort of fourteen year old carelessness Ernst admired. “Sure. When my parents are fighting.”

“My parents fight a lot too.”

“Cool.”

Ernst cursed himself, wondering how anyone could miss whatever social cue he was supposed to hit. Bobby, seemingly unphased, propped himself upright to look out over the valley. He was just a year and a handful of months older than Ernst, but he seemed so much older there, bathed in orange and deep shadows.

He patted the earth beside him and Ernst was quick to take the seat. He finally allowed himself a good up-close look at Bobby. How stern his face was, jaw clenched and green eyes staring out with no real expression besides the vague stoicism that always hung over his features. 

Ernst had just noticed how his short hair barely moved in the breeze when Bobby spoke up again, not even looking at the boy sitting beside him. “Do you stare like this all the time?”

“No, no, sorry.” He hadn’t been sure how long he had been looking at Bobby, but that must’ve meant it was too long. He turned to look out at the waters instead, the waves looking like tiny ripples from their vantage point. Between nervous breaths, he continued. “I’ve just never seen you out of uniform and-”

“Do you wear your uniform in the summer, Ernst?”

“Well, no.”

Bobby didn’t respond. He was the type to not say anything if there was really nothing to say. Ernst was learning more about this boy every second. As he had never said more than three words to him before he came by Ernst’s house that afternoon and asked him if he was busy.

He seemed to know everything, which annoyed Ernst because he felt like he knew nothing.

But this was big. This was important. He could feel it in the indents the grass left in his soft pink palms, the way the breeze misplaced his hair, the sound of Bobby breathing beside him. 

He began to do anything to distract himself from the heavy presence of Bobby. Instead of trying to figure out what Bobby was thinking or what to say next, he focused on how his legs splayed out in front of him, the permanent marker doodles on the canvas of his Converse, the little dot of a sailboat coming into shore. His mind wandered to Hanschen for the first time in some time, which surprised him. Usually, he thought of Hanschen often, usually wondering what Hanschen was doing and when next they would spend time together and what they would do. But that day had passed with no word from Hanschen, the first since they had met a few weeks before. 

“Is this going to happen?”

Ernst turned quickly to look at Bobby, like his body had been waiting for him to say something. When he saw Bobby, looking up at him expectantly, he immediately understood. Otherwise he would have been asking what he meant. But just looking at her face, staring sternly at Ernst, he knew what he meant and he knew this was the important thing.

“Yeah, it should,” Was all he could think to say. As soon as the words left his mouth, Bobby sat up, looking down on Ernst even while sitting. Ernst quickly became aware of how close Bobby was, wondering if he had always been that close. 

He didn’t think to why he should be agreeing, but he did. And he didn’t think to why he wanted to agree, he just did, holding his breath as he felt Bobby’s eyes look him over. Bobby sized him up quickly, his gaze moving over Ernst’s eager eyes, his cheeks already flushed, his lips. “You can’t tell anyone,” He said after a pause, looking down expectantly at the younger.

“Yes. I promise. I won’t.”

That’s when Bobby touched him. A nothing of a touch, a hand on the shoulder. Anyone else could do it to Ernst without a second thought. But it was the way he touched him, so gentle, so knowing, that made Ernst shake. That and the adrenaline, and the constant need to tell himself not to think, which in turn made him want to think even more. This went on for what felt like forever, Bobby just looking at Ernst, his hand on his shoulder and his breath against Ernst’s cheek, until he moved. He had to be the one to initiate, Ernst was too busy trying to silence his own mind.

“Hey, Ernst!” 

For a moment, Ernst didn’t care. He kept leaning, to close the gap that was no longer there. Bobby had already broken away, turning his head to look towards the voice as he stood, putting more distance between him and the ever-waiting Ernst.

It was Hanschen, still out of breath from his climb up the slope. His face was flushed pink but his gaze was certain, trained on Bobby. 

“Oh, Hanschen, what are you do-”

“Your mom wants you home,” Even while speaking to Ernst, he kept his eyes on Bobby, squinting in the setting sun’s glare.

Ernst didn’t say anything as Bobby got up, huffing out a quick “I’ll see you around, Ernst.” before leaving. Ernst knew it was a lie, he knew this was it. He could hear Bobby shuffle back down the hill and the metal clanking of him getting on his bike and taking off. He watched Bobby grow smaller and smaller as he rode down the path they came, standing on the pedals and not looking back. 

“Come on, let’s go, Ernst.”

“My mom didn’t really send you.”

“I said let’s go.”

Ernst got up, dusting the dirt from his shorts and followed Hanschen, who was already going down the slope in silence. 

Their walk home was just as silent for some time, the pair walking side by side along the dirt path, their bikes to their sides, bumping along the pebbles. Ernst looked at anything besides Hanschen until he got the courage to speak, just as the sun had completely disappeared behind Place Fell. 

“How did you know where I was?” He asked, voice cracking much more than he would have liked.

Hanschen stared ahead, stone faced. He reminded Ernst of Bobby in that way. “I saw you two riding up. I was worried.”

“Why were you worried?”

“I was worried you were going something stupid. And you were,” He finally looked at Ernst. In the moonlight he saw how his cheeks had remained pink. “You know anyone could have seen you, Ernst. Anyone could have seen what you were doing.”

“And no one did.”

“I did.” More quiet. Hanschen’s tennis shoes were loud on the ground, cutting through the quiet of the night. On any other occasion, Ernst would have found this quiet peaceful, but Hanschen made it tense. This growing rumbling of tension finally broke after he spoke up. “Ernst, do you want everyone to start thinking you’re gay?”

“No,” Then, after a moment. “But what if I was?”

Hanschen looked at him again, this time his gaze was softer. He was finally back to the Hanschen Ernst knew. “Well, are you?”

Ernst hadn’t really thought on it. Not much, at least. He had decided not to think about it some time ago and had been rather content agreeing with his classmates when they called girls hot and ignoring the other boys in the changing rooms. 

He had never had it asked though. He had just lived in the in between where no one asked and he didn’t have to decide. 

Hanschen stopped walking, prompting Ernst to stop too, looking at him expectantly. He guessed that meant he had to decide. He rolled it over a few times. He thought girls were pretty, but not in the way his classmates called them hot and admired their forms and wished to be climbing on top of them. He admired the ways they braided their hair and embroidered flowers on their uniform skirts and the perfumes they wore.

He didn’t think he wanted anyone the way the boys in his class wanted those girls. He had never thought those gross thoughts they had about anyone, boy or girl. Maybe he just didn’t like anybody.

But still, the thought was there, the doubt. The part of him that wanted Bobby Maler to kiss him made him doubt. The part of him that thought Hanschen had pretty eyes and wanted to see his smile made him doubt. The part of him that wondered what it would be like to hold a boy’s hand as he sat on the shore of the lake so no one else could see. 

“I don’t know. Would you hate me if I was?”

“No.” Hanschen’s tone was simple, blunt. He turned away quickly, mounting his bike in one fluid motion. Ernst couldn’t help but think he was trying to hide his face. “But I would if you do something so dumb again.”

He took off down the path, making it over the final hill into town and leaving Ernst standing there, dumbfounded. He knew better than to follow. So he made his way home, the sounds cricket songs and the breeze haunting through branches keeping him from being completely alone.


	11. Chapter 11

1984

“Shit, shit, shit,” Ernst chanted after he tripped over his own feet for the fifth time that night. Ilse would never cease to be amazed by how someone as graceful as Ernst Robel could be so graceless when drinking. She let out a snorting laugh, which caused the pair to break out into even more giggles on the sidewalk outside of the Academy. 

“I wish Moritz could have seen you tonight!” She said once the laughter subsided, hooking her arm with Ernst’s and leaning on him as they walked. “We are taking him with us next time.”

Ernst nodded in messy agreement. “Once he gets his grade up in anatomy, we’ll drag him out.” A few more giggles. “He would have tried to punch that guy in the face.”

“I don’t think he would be able to reach his face.” A pause of uproarious laughter. Ilse liked seeing Ernst like this, a lot less structured and well mannered than he was usually. “I also do not think he believed that you were my boyfriend.”

He quirked his head to the side, looking at her with a smirk. “What? Am I not manly enough?” She punched him in the arm and he immediately let out a yelp of pain, followed by more giggles. “Well, it got him to leave you alone.”

“You are a real hero…” She focused on her walk, attempting not to twist her ankles in the platforms she had decided to wear out, giving her at least two inches over Ernst. When she looked up to the entrance to the Academy, she froze, tugging Ernst to stop alongside her. “Oh shit, somebody is out there.”

Ernst looked away from the night sky he had been studying and to the stone steps of the school. Ilse was right, there was a man sitting on the steps in front of the giant front building Ernst and Ilse had to go through to get back to their dorms. He couldn’t make out any details, on account of the street light above making the man nothing but a shadow against harsh yellow. But he was certain it was nothing. 

“You weren’t worried at all about security asking questions, but one guy having a smoke terrifies you?” She shrugged at this and he lead the two towards the steps, intending to silently walk up past the man and back into their school. 

“Ernst? What are you doing out?”

Ernst stopped, looking to see Hanschen’s familiar face gazing back at him. He had a lit cigarette between his fingers, hovering just a few inches from his lips. All of his features were exaggerated in the shadows, making him look like a man made of night sky. “I could ask you the same thing.” Ernst replied, his hands making fists in the pockets of his jacket. 

“Touche.”

Hanschen picked up the pack of cigarettes from where they sat on the step beside him and offered them to the others. “Do either of you smoke?”

With his arm extended, Ernst realized that this was the first time he had seen Hanschen outside of his usual uniform of tweed, turtlenecks, collared shirts, and oxfords. In fact, he looked completely normal, in a pair of sweatpants and Brown University sweatshirt. It was a bit jarring for Ernst to see him like this, but he only hesitated for a minute before responding. “No, actually, I’m fi-”

“Thank you very much!”

Ilse moved from behind him and towards Hanschen, taking a cigarette from the pack with a smile. Hanschen picked up a lighter from the same spot and flicked it to life in front of her, “Aren’t you freezing?” He asked as Ilse inhaled. 

She looked down at her slip of a dress and shrugged. “Not in particular, no. Why you want to borrow my jacket?” She pulled at the oversized fur coat that kept her from the harsh chill of New York October nights. 

“No, no,” Hanschen chuckled and looked her over a few times before asking, “What’s your name?”

“Ilse Neumann,” She offered her free hand to him to shake, which he did graciously.

“Ilse Neumann,” He repeated before finally looking over to Ernst. “Are you a friend of Ernst?”

She took a seat on the step beside Hanschen. Ernst didn’t know whether to be amused or put off by their instant chumminess. “Yes, I would hope I am, at least.”

“You are,” Ernst assured, beginning to feel awkward standing over the two.

“And what are you two up to at three in the morning.”

Ilse let out a long exhale of smoke. “We went into town for drinks, not much.” When Hanschen raised his eyebrows, she continued. “What? He is nineteen, it is legal here.”

“Nineteen?” Hanschen began to look Ernst up and down, his gaze so strong, Ernst could feel it digging into his flesh. “I could have sworn yesterday you were eighteen.”

“My birthday was last week.”

With a nod, he leaned back but still didn’t take his eyes off of Ernst. “Well, happy late birthday then.”

I gave him a thin, close mouthed smile in return as Ilse spoke, “Hanschen, right?” he nodded. “You’re Madame Rilow’s son?”

A side glance to Ernst before he responded. “Yes, I am. Word spreads fast, I suppose.”

“Do you go here?”

Hanschen looked over his shoulder at the stone building, blowing out smoke at the mammoth of a school. “I don’t think you could pay me to go here. No offense,” He looked back at the other two. “I had enough of ballet by the time I was ten.”

Ilse turned to him, a bit more intent now. “Then can I ask why you have been hanging around here?”

“Taking a year off of university and I have nowhere better to go.” 

It took them some time to notice that Ernst was staring off, studying how bright the stars had grown in the starless night. He shifted is wait from the toes to the heels of the white Nikes Ilse had insisted looked good, almost falling over himself as he fumbled. His hands, deep in the pockets of his jacket, tapped a quiet rhythm on his thighs. He was busy scheduling mentally all the homework he had to do the next day when he heard Ilse say his name.

“What?” He turned back to the apir to see her standing, putting out the cigarette beneath her boot.

“I am heading to bed. Would you like to come-”

“Stay out here,” They both turned to Hanschen, who was looking back at Ernst, almost pleading, before looking away and blowing a puff of smoke into the sky. “If you want to, that is. But I’d prefer some company.”

Ernst shrugged to Ilse, who raised her eyebrow in silent conversation and left, wishing the two a good night and reminding them to get some sleep eventually and not to catch a cold.

Hanschen didn’t look at Ernst until the door had closed. “Care to sit?”

“It’s cold,” Ernst said as he took Ilse’s spot a foot or so from Hanschen.

Hanschen didn’t bother with any small talk. He looked Ernst over a few times, noticing the white fabric of a warm sweater poking out from behind his thick jacket, a thin gold chain laying over that. “Are you drunk?”

His matter of fact stunned Ernst for a moment, before he responded indignantly. “No.”

“But you drank?”

“You can drink without being drunk.”

He shrugged, flicking his smoldering cigarette butt to the ground, not bothering to stomp it out and leaving it laying on the sidewalk. “I don’t recall you to be the type to drink.”

“You recall a lot of stuff all of a sudden.” Ernst chuckled, noticing the mist that escaped his lips as he spoke. It swirled and disappeared a few inches from his face. He blew out again, studying that instead of Hanschen’s confused face. He didn’t need to. He could almost feel the brow of the man beside him furrow.

But he was quick to recover, shaking his head. “I’ve been told I have a good memory.”

“Selective memory.”

“What?” Hanschen questioned Ernst’s correction. “What are you talking about?”

Ernst turned to face him. He was staring intently, nervous fingers rolling over the front of his jeans as he spoke, reciting the issue like a lawyer. “You don’t remember me until you do. And then you remember every little thing about me.”

“Well…” Hanschen leaned back and rested his elbows on the step behind him. The pair were both quiet for a few moments, watching a man and woman walk past the park on the other side of the road, huddled together and speaking in quiet tones. The man’s arm was wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her into them. They made no notice of the young men on the steps, lost in their early morning world where only one another existed. Ernst might have envied them if he were given the time to think more on it. But now he just looked at Hanschen expectantly. “Some things come and go. You remind me, you know? Seeing you makes me remember some things.” 

“Do you remember that you kissed me?”

When this was met by quiet, Ernst turned away. He looked out into the empty street like Hanschen was, the two men choosing to look anywhere besides each other. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut for long though. After a moment, he spoke up again, his volume rising just a bit as he continued on. “Does seeing me make you remember? Or is that one of the things that’s gone? Or did it never really happen and it was all a dream?”

“I think I do. Vaguely.”

“And?”

“And what?” Hanschen rubbed his hands together in an attempt for warmth. “That’s all there is. I don’t know what more to tell you. I remember, alright.”

Ernst nodded and chewed at his cheek. His brain ran at a few thousand miles an hour, loading with all the accusations he wanted to yell, all the things he wanted to say. He would formulate a question to ask before remembering that it was a stupid thing to say to someone that had grown. Soon, it all felt stupid. Nothing he could say would make him feel like anything but a child, whining and crying about something that Hanschen didn’t even think twice about. 

“How do you choose what’s not important enough to remember?”

He hadn’t decided that was what he was going to say. It just happened, falling out of his mouth like rubble after an explosion, tumbling into place around him. Once the dust had settled, he looked at Hanschen. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but he knew he wanted something. Maybe guilt. Maybe apology. He wanted Hanschen to turn to him and say that he never meant to forget him, that he never meant to hurt him, even if it was all those years ago.

But he didn’t. Instead, he looked at Ernst from over his shoulder and shrugged. “I don’t think I choose. It just happens. Sorry.”

The sorry didn’t feel quite genuine, it felt more like a ‘sorry you feel that way’ than anything else. But Ernst didn’t press more. What was the use, he thought, if all that was going to happen was he was going to realize that Hanschen still doesn’t care. He had hoped that maybe, if he dug and prodded enough, he’d find something in Hanschen who thought about it as much as Ernst had. Some part of Hanschen that, like Ernst, wished he could go back and feel the rush again or being so innocent and so content. 

But it was useless, he had decided. There was nothing there. Nothing left of the boy he knew. 

He pulled out the pack again, pale fingers fumbling for another cigarette. “Can I try one?” Ernst asked, a bit defeated. 

When Hanschen’s eyes moved from the box to Ernst, he couldn’t help but smile in amusement. He quickly hid it, but it was hard to resist when he saw Ersnt attempting to remain calm. “Why?” He shrugged in response. “No.”

“Why?” Ernst asked as Hanschen lit his own cigarette. He watched his lips curl and close around the cigarette, the movement becoming fluid and familiar it looked like he had evolved to do so. 

“It’s bad for your lungs”

“They why do you do it?”

“Your body matters more than mine.”

Before Ernst could ask anything else, Hanschen stood. His eyes were sincere, but unphased. He acted as if he hadn’t taken Ernst’s decision that he didn’t care and flipped it sideways. “It’s late. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Was all Ernst could think to say of the thousands of words swarming his skull. In that moment, as he watched Hanschen smile and walk up the steps, he wished so badly to be rid of the idea of Hanschen Rilow that was invading his mind more and more every moment.


	12. Chapter 12

1984

Hanschen attempted to be inconspicuous when he came into Melitta and Thea’s morning class that Tuesday. He came in shortly after the class started, just as the class wrapped up their warm up routine. A few students stopped and looked from Hanschen to the teachers, wondering if they were supposed to stop or if they were going to address the fact that he had entered. 

But neither woman did anything besides usher the students to continue on and cast stern looks over to their brother. 

Most of the students had no idea who is was, but knew enough of the Academy to just smile and go with the flow. In their minds he might have been some sort of scout or an elusive professor. 

Ernst was the only one to know better, along with Moritz and Ilse. He did his best to ignore Hanschen and continue on as if he wasn’t even there, but he couldn’t help but feel like there were eyes following him as they ran the choreography they had learned the class before. Hanschen hadn’t spoken to Ernst since their sunday morning chat on the steps and Ernst had convinced himself that Hanschen had completely forgotten about him. That seemed to be the conclusion he always came to. 

When he did glance over at Hanschen, his suspicions were confirmed. His eyes were locked on Ernst, unashamedly watching him move across the hardwood floored. Ernst was almost impressed by the fact that he didn’t look away. He just continued to watch, sitting on the wooden stool in the corner of the room, leaning his back up against the window. He didn’t do much besides that. After about half an hour, he reached into the pocket of his blazer and pulled out a pack of cigarette, lighting one and blowing the smoke out the crack in the window. But other than that he was stationary, like a piece of furniture, or a painting on the wall. If Ernst tried, he could have forgotten he was there.

When class ended and all the students left to go enjoy their lunch breaks, Hanschen stayed, puffing his second or third cigarette of the morning and waiting. Ernst wasn’t sure what for, but he wasn’t going to make a fool of himself finding out. He was walking to the door with Ilse and Moritz on either side when Hanschen’s voice stopped him. 

“Ernst? Could you hang back a moment?”

He nodded to his friends, both sporting concerned looks, and watched them leave without him. Ernst turned back around to see Hanschen, stopping mid conversation with his sisters to stand and approach him. 

“Your dégagés are sluggish,” He said almost immediately. No warning, no pretense, no greeting. He just stood in front of Ernst, his feet together and his arms behind his back, like a professor giving a lecture. Except his eyes were moving up and down Ernst’s body, brows furrowed. “It’s like your feet are made of bricks. And you’re pinching your shoulder blades too. I think you’re carrying too much tension. You can see it in your arms.”

Ernst was taken back immediately, staring at Hanschen’s nonchalant expression in amazement. “Wha- Excuse me?” 

Hanschen nodded as if nothing had happened at all. “How long have you been dancing?” 

“Six years,” He was quick to reply. When Hanschen raised his eyebrows skeptically, he continued, his tone becoming more defensive by the second. “Why? How long have you been dancing?”

All Hanschen did was shake his head, chuckling lightly, as if Ernst taking offense was part of some running joke between the two that didn’t exist."Do you even dance?" Ernst continued to press. 

Hanschen, in response to Ernst's anger, spoke as soft and calm as new-fallen snow “You should come by sometime.”

“Come by where?”

Hanschen looked the other over. Arms crossed, glare set. If looks could kill, this one would definitely maim. But he kept on grinning, like something about this was cute. “My apartment. Well, it’s really just the second floor of my mother’s place. I give private lessons.”

“Is this a joke?” When Hanschen shook his head, Ernst scoffed, moving back towards the door, already planning how he’d describe this to Moritz and Ilse. “I’ll pass. But thank you for the oh-so gracious offer.”

He was almost to the doorway when he heard the loud patting of hard soles on wood floors and Hanschen appeared in front of him, this larger frame blocking Ernst from the doorway. His movement seemed a bit desperate, but his face and voice remained calm, confusing Ernst even more. “I don’t just offer this to anybody, Ernst. Come by Saturday morning. Around ten.”

As Hanschen spoke, Ernst looked over his shoulder to see if his sisters were noticing at all how their younger brother cornering a student. But the two acted as if they were alone in the room, speaking to each other about their afternoon class in low voices. When Ernst looked back to Hanschen, he looked back expectantly, eyebrows raised and head held high. 

“Sure. Fine. Whatever. Let me through. It’s lunch hour.”

Hanschen stepped aside, but still spoke as Ernst brushed past him and out of the classroom. “It’s across the street, on the other side of the park. The white house. You can’t miss it.”

Ernst just grunted in response, hurrying down the stairs, the air on indignation going with him. You could question Ernst on almost anything, correcting him in English or music or social skills or driving. And he would probably agree with you. But not dance. And not by Hanschen Rilow. Who, from where he stood at the top of the steps, could see Ernst throw the front door of the school open and storm down the steps in a fury of adolescence and artistic pride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry if anyone was following this fic closely and waiting for an update for over a whole month. I was pouring all my time and thought into finishing my behemoth that is the life in your shape series and writing this felt like looking down the barrel of a gun. But we Gucci now and HOPEFULLY I'll be updating a lot more.


	13. Chapter 13

1979

Ernst went to the Rilow’s cabin twice the next day, three times the day after that. And each time the door would be opened, most of the time by one of Hanschen’s gangly, curly haired older sisters, sometimes by his mother, who looked so much like Hanschen it frightened Ernst. And each time they would say the same thing. 

“I’ll tell Hans that you’re here.”

Then they would disappear back into the cabin. The twins would close the door and leave Ernst and his bike alone on the front porch. His mother would leave the door open, allowing Ernst to look into the cabin’s living room, with big leather couches and hardwood floors decorated with ornate rugs. A huge sliding glass door lead to the back porch, overlooking the waters of the lake. 

And through this open door, Ernst could faintly hear Hanschen’s mother knock on a door down the hall, and then say “Ernst is outside, Hansi.”

And Hanschen’s even fainter voice would reply. “Tell him I’m busy.”

And Ernst would leave. Walk his bike back up the steep driveway without another word, his eyes downcast as he wondered how else to spend the day if not with Hanschen. 

He attempted to return back to the other kids in town who he had been ignoring in favor of Hanschen all summer. But they seemed boring now, suggesting they spend their time sitting outside of the grocery store eating the candy they stole or racing their bikes from one tree to another. None of them wanted conversation, or to read Shakespeare, or to bicker meaninglessly. None of them were Hanschen. 

Bobby was sometimes a part of this group, always being the winner when one of the boys suggested a race. But he never spoke to Ernst. And Ernst didn’t dare try to speak to him. Everytime he thought of speaking, Hanschen’s last words to him would ring in his head. “Ernst, do you want everyone to start thinking you’re gay?”

The way he said it made it seem bad, so Ernst decided he didn’t. Bobby seemed to decide this too. So the two kept their distance. 

He didn’t see Hanschen again until a week after the incident on the hill. He was with one of his sisters, leaving the library with an armful of books. And Ernst, who had been riding by with a few boys from his class, stopped as soon as he saw Hanschen. He didn’t hesitate to stop his bike and begin walking towards the siblings, calling back to the others in an afterthought that he would catch up. 

He got to Hanschen as his sister unlocked their parents Dodge. “Hanschen, hi!” he exclaimed, breathless. Hanschen, busy putting his stack of books in the backseat, turned to see Ernst and his gaze almost immediately fell, looking at Ernst’s tennis shoes rather than his face.

“Ernst. What?”

A little put off by his friend’s sharp tone, Ernst hesitated before continuing. He backed away and watched as Hanschen busied himself with organizing the books. “Well, I just wanted to see if you were okay. You haven’t been-”

“I’ve been busy.”

“With what?”

Hanschen stopped his busy work, finally looking up to glare at Ernst. “Busy.”

Ernst didn’t say anything else. He knew Hanschen was lying, and Hanschen knew that he knew. But his poisonous voice told Ernst not to bother questioning him. Instead, Ernst nodded, backing away more and watching Hanschen get into the passenger seat. He didn’t look at Ernst as his sister backed out of the parking space and left the library parking lot. Ernst walked home alone after that, kicking at the rocks along the side of the road as he dragged himself home.

Ernst had practically given up on Hanschen, resigning himself to a summer as boring as the rest had been. When the others in his grade became too annoying for him to stand, he had decided to spend his days alone, peddling aimlessly down the roads he had ridden a hundred times over. He guessed it was better than spending the days at home, listening to the faint sound of his parents bickering through his bedroom wall. 

He was on one of these lonesome rides when a familiar car drove past him and towards the lake. It was Hanschen’s family car, filled with his parents in the front seat and his two sisters in the backseat. But Hanschen was nowhere to be seen. Without a second thought, Ernst turned around and took off back towards town. He hadn’t really thought through what the plan was, but he didn’t care. He was carried by the need to see Hanschen again. 

He didn’t know how much time he would have, so he moved fast, ditching his bike at the top of the driveway and rushing to the front door. With no one home to get it for him, Hanschen answered the door when Ernst knocked. His eyes fell to the ground the moment he realized it was Ernst, just like they had in the parking lot.

“I’m busy,” Was all he said before moving to close the door, hoping the excuse would remain unquestioned. 

He was completely unprepared for Ernst to speak, his voice raised and rushed to get to Hanschen before he could completely shut. “What could be keeping you so busy?”

His desperate tone was met with the door stopping, hating just before Hanschen had completely closed it. Ernst, still shaken by his little outburst, took a deep breath and continued much slower than before. “Books can’t possibly be that interesting.”

Like a criminal caught red handed, Hanschen pushed the door back open. He stood before Ernst, silent, but at least he was there. “What did I do?” Ernst asked.

“You didn’t do anything,” Hanschen was quick to assure him. He was still defensive, looking anywhere else other than at Ernst. His face had turned a sort of flushed pink.

“Then why do you hate me?”

And with that, Hanschen’s dismissal of Ernst fell apart. He finally looked at Ernst and saw the sadness and guilt in his friend’s face. His heart sank, seeing how honestly Ernst had blamed himself. “I don't…Ernst...” He began, but the words became stuck in his throat. All his frustration left in a sigh. “I could never hate you.”

“Then what happen-” Ernst’s question was cut short by Hanschen reaching out and pulling the smaller boy into a hug. Ernst immediately felt his heartbeat quicken. Hanschen had never hugged him before. And once he thought about it, he was certain that no boy his age had hugged him, at least not since they were toddlers. He wondered if the strange fluttering feeling in his stomach was normal. 

“I was just angry,” Hanschen muttered, his mouth only an inch or so from Ernst’s temple. He quickly corrected himself.“Not at you, just… I was angry.”

Still pressed to Hanschen’s shoulder, Ernst asked, “What were you so angry at?”

There was a little hesitation before Hanschen responded, his voice still shaken. “Maybe not angry. Maybe just sad.”

Ernst was about to inquire further when Hanschen suddenly stepped away, holding Ernst by the shoulders. He held him at arm's length, staring into his eyes with a tense kind of deliberation. “Don’t do that again,” He demanded. He sounded like a parents whose child got lost in a crowd, thankful but dead serious. 

“Do what?” Ernst was starting to get tired of asking so many questions. He wondered how much longer he would be held at the mercy of Hanschen’s cryptic words. He also wondered why he felt like he had lost something when Hanschen pulled out of their hug. Like something that had never bothered him before had suddenly became a gnawing want to pull Hanschen back to him.

Hanschen let go of Ernst. The younger could immediately feel the warmth of where his hands had been. “Bobby. He’s not…” Hanschen shook his head, searching for words as he spoke for them. “He won’t…” he huffed, “He’s just not right.” He shook his head, surrendering to the fact that those were the best words he could say, or at least the only words he could think of. 

“Bobby hasn’t spoken to me since the hill.”

Hanschen nodded, the tension in his body finally subsiding. “Thank God. Just, don’t do that again.” His voice was pleading, but not weak. Like he had been staying up at night worrying about it. Ernst wondered why Hanschen had been so stressed out over something as dumb as Bobby Maler. Hanschen was then quick to look back to Ernst, correcting himself once more. “I mean, please don’t do that again.”

“Alright.” Ernst couldn’t help but smile. Hanschen was smiling too, the warm kind of smile that made Ernst want to just run, but not run away. Maybe run towards it. He pointed to the once closed door as he spoke. “But you can’t do this again too. I missed you.” And then, almost as a joke, he added with a grin. “Please.”

“Then come inside. I just got a copy of Much Ado About Nothing.”

Ernst had just stepped inside, Hanschen politely shutting the door behind him, when he suddenly halted. He turned back to look at Hanschen, his face drawn up in confusion and recollection. “Wait, what do you mean ‘he’s not right’?”

Hanschen acted as if Ernst hadn’t said a thing and walked past him, giving his friend a playful shove to follow. “Just come inside, Ernst.”

Ernst smiled to himself, wondering how he could have forgotten the vague and convoluted world that Hanschen lived in. He followed.


	14. Chapter 14

1984

Hanschen was right, Ernst couldn’t miss it. He had seen the house every day from the front steps of the school, not knowing it belonged to Madame Rilow. Now it seemed obvious. It was a square, Italianate house, pure white and squished tight between two other houses. Ernst rang the doorbell below the golden sign engraved with the word ‘Rilow’. Inside, he heard the chime ring through the home and he took a step back to wait. He peered up to the windows on the second floor, all covered by white curtains, similar to the large bay window directly beside the door, seeming to hide whatever was inside.

He felt like he had been waiting forever, checking his watch between glimpses at the door. It was exactly ten when he arrived, but slowly the minutes ticked on. Ten o’one. Ten o’two. He was considering turning back and leaving when he noticed the smaller sign below the golden ‘Rilow’ sign. This was made with what appeared to be a label maker and stuck to the siding of the house, reading ‘Hanschen Rilow Esq.’ along with a second doorbell. With a huff, Ernst pressed this one as well.

Almost immediately after the buzz from the doorbell sounded in the house, Ernst saw the curtains of the bay window pull back. Hanschen waved from his seat at the window, a book in hand. And although Ernst was certain Hanschen had heard the first bell chime, he waved back.

“Come on in, up the stairs,” Hanschen said once he opened the door. Ernst rolled his eyes at the lack of a greeting and followed Hanschen up the stairs, barely catching a glimpse at the living room, a cozy and romantic room, also painted white, like the entire house seemed to be.

“Does your entire family live here?”

“My mom is downstairs. My sisters live across town.” Hanschen replied as the pair reached the top of the stairs, into what Ernst assumed was what Hanschen had called “His Apartment”. He stepped aside so Ernst could see the large, empty room. On the wall facing out to the street, beneath the windows, was a wooden ballet barre. All the furniture was pushed to the other end of the room, a simple couch, arm chair, and a few bookcases. “But they all have their own studios elsewhere. This is mine.”

Ernst nodded, trying to take in surroundings the best he could. “Hmm. Guess that’s what this is?”

“Guess it is,” Hanschen walked to the windows to pull back the curtains and let in the early morning light, grey from the overcast sky. Ernst finally fully caught a glimpse at what the other man. A cable knit, sweater hung loose around him, almost threatening to slip off of his shoulder. And with that, a pair of grey trousers that stopped just above his ankles, showing what Ernst just realized were bare feet.

He also realized that Hanschen was looking at him, eyebrow raised expectantly. Ernst was quick to look away, feigning that he had been studying the scratched up hardwood floors. “Well…” He huffed, a blush coming to his cheeks. “How uh… How long have danced?”

Hanschen didn’t say a word, he just pointed to the wall behind Ernst, which was practically lined with shelves full of metal, awards, and certificates. Ernst looked speechelessly at the awards engraved ‘Hanschen Rilow’ along with some title or achievement from a competition he didn’t know existed. “My mother had me competing from the age I could walk.”

There were some pictures too. Of Hanschen ranging from what looked like the age of four, brilliant blond and chubby cheeked, to what must’ve been his teenage years, where he stood stoic and proud. He was mid-dance in all of them, leotards and tights covering his maturing body. In one or two, Ernst saw a boy he thought he knew, leaping across a stage in black and white. He wasn’t smiling in those pictures. And when Ernst looked back, he noticed Hanschen wasn’t smiling in most of them. The last picture of Hanschen smiling must’ve been when he was no older than eight or so. Everything after was the Hanschen that Ernst was familiar with, straight faced. 

“And now you are a…?”

“Mathematics major with a minor in philosophy,” Hanschen answered. When Ernst turned to look at him in confusion, he continued, “I know. It’s a real one-eighty. Now, put your shoes on.”

When Ernst didn’t move to obey his direction, Hanschen was confused. But not as confused when, a moment later, Ernst turned to him and started giggling. “What?” He snapped. “What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing! Nothing…” Ernst shook his head and went to put his bag down, following Hanschen’s request as he kicked off his Nikes. “That’s just a funny saying. ‘A real one-eighty’.”

Hanschen feigned disappointment and shook his head, trying to hide his growing smile. He busied himself with picking through a box full of records, finding an album of Liszt to put on the ancient record player set in the corner of the room. From behind him, Ernst spoke as he pulled off his hoodie. “So… You’ve danced all your life and you seem to be pretty good at it. Why don’t you teach like Thea and Melitta?”

Hanschen shrugged. “I’m a bad teacher, no good at working with people. And I got tired of ballet. It was too feminine for me. Get on the barre.”

He did as he was told, but still stared at Hanschen, expecting some sort of realization of who he was speaking to or what he had said. But nothing. Still-faced Hanschen approached Ernst with no sign that he realized what he had said may have been rude. “Face forward, Ernst,” Was all he said, sliding into place behind Ernst. “You need to be reminded of the basics. That will stop the sloppiness. Arms in high third,” He muttered, as if preoccupied. Ernst followed his instruction. “Round your elbow. Hold it level. Now fifth. Now feet.” From behind Ernst, Hanschen reached up and pulled Ernst’s arms up by the wrist. “A bit taller, now. Stay rounded.” His hand dropped down to Ernst’s elbow, pushing in a feather light touch with the pad of his finger. Unconsciously, Ernst felt his cheeks tint pink. “You’re too familiar with yourself. You think it’s easy, Ernst. Fingers.” When Ernst did not immediately move, Hanschen reached up to push Ernst’s finger up to attention with the lightest touch. 

“Bring it to relevé. And prep… and up.” Ernst did as he was told, pushing up onto his toes and feeling his weight shift and tremble before finding his balance. Immediately, he felt Hanschen’s hands on either side of his waist, pushing up just slightly, holding Ernst in place up on his toes. 

“You’re wobbly. I know you have better balance than this,” Hanschen’s hands pulled up, his fingertips pressing into the fabric of Ernst’s leotard and the flesh beneath his ribs. “I’ve seen you do this before. Up.”

Ernst pushed a bit more into the air, his toes aching under his weight. “You could do better. Down.” A sigh of relief and Ernst sank back to the ground, Hanschen’s hands disappearing from his sides as he did so, leaving the spots where his hand had been warm. He had scarcely been back on two flat feet for a moment or two when Hanschen, still close behind, began to order once more.

“Devant attitude, left leg.” Ernst lifted his leg into the air and pressed back up onto his toes. Immediately, Hanschen began huffing out critiques, his breath now meeting the bare part of skin at the back of Ernst’s neck and covering the younger’s skin in goosebumps.

“One-hundred forty five degrees, Ernst. Bend more. No don’t pull back, bend. Out more. Up more.” Ernst couldn’t see him, but he could feel a strong hand push into the space between his shoulder blades. “You’re tense. Your shoulders are pinching.” But when Ernst attempted to loosen his shoulders, he spoke again. “Now your arms look messy. Back up. No, you’re tense again.”

“What do you suggest I do then?” Ernst suddenly snapped, his leg wavering in the air before him. When Hanschen did not reply with an equally angry tone, his heart dropped. He feared that he had somehow offended Hanschen, that he would soon be told to leave.

But after a brief pause, Hanschen responded, calm and clinical. “I suggest you focus. You’re distracted.” And with that, Hanschen slipped from behind Ernst to the front of him, his hand wrapping around Ernst’s elevated ankle and pulling his leg further up with the slightest tug. “You’re going to be surrounded by plenty of men that look just like me throughout your career, Ernst. So I suggest you set aside any skipped heart beats and stop pinching your goddamn shoulders.”

Ernst couldn’t remember the last time his face turned that pink. He instinctively went to look away, trying to think of an excuse to get out of the room. But before his racing mind could pause to come up with a reason, Hanschen spoke again, his voice soft and almost playful. “Eyes forward, Ernst.”

Slowly, his head tilted back up and his eyes came forward, landing on Hanschen who still stood in front of him, hand around his ankle and a smile playing at his lips. This all seemed to amuse him, but he treated it so casually that Ernst couldn’t even try to find his footing to react to it properly. 

“And down. Now derrière.”

And Ernst obeyed, wondering if Hanschen Rilow treated the entire world like this or just him. And if he was always going to treat Ernst like this.

THe answer, he would find out soon, was yes. He realized this when he arrived the following Sunday, ringing the ‘Hanschen’ doorbell once more and subjecting himself to another hour of being picked apart. He would understand if it was just his dancing that Hanschen critiqued, but it wasn’t. Every touch made Hanschen smirk, every messy movement made him tisk knowingly.

At one point Hanschen commented, more to himself than anyone else, “I wonder if you get this bothered around your other instructors”. To which Ernst wanted to respond that Hanschen wasn’t as attractive as he gave himself credit for. 

But this was a lie, of course. Ernst would have been lying if he said Hanschen wasn’t attractive, if not one of the most attractive people he had ever seen. And Hanschen seemed to be very aware of this, smiling triumphantly at the speechless Ernst before ordering him to do something else and changing the subject once more.

Ernst knew Hanschen was attractive, but he couldn’t figure out if he was attracted to Hanschen. Any time his mind threatened to ponder how he felt about Hanschen, the man in question would insist Ernst focus. And if Ernst tried to contemplate it when he was alone, all he could think of was the Hanschen he knew as a child, the Hanschen who he kicked around the summer with. 

One thing he knew for sure was that he was frustrated by Hanschen.

“Come here,” He prompted after their third meeting, a long morning of repeating the same leaps over and over again. Ernst, who had been packing his bag and preparing to leave, looked up to see Hanschen standing on the side of the room Ernst had never dared cross to. He sat down on one of the large arm chairs, pushing aside the armchair in front of him and looking at Ernst expectantly. 

Hesitant, the younger crossed to the furnished end of the studio, standing before Hanschen and waiting for the next demand. He was surprised when the demand ended up being, “Well what are you staring at, sit down.”

And after Ernst sat in the armchair across from Hanschen, there was another one. “Lean back, let me see your feet.”

Ernst hesitated once more, looking down at his worn to death ballet shoes and trying to think of what the hell Hanschen could be thinking of. “Come on,” Hanschen ushered him and Ernst sighed, slumping back into the chair and kicking out his long legs. His tired feet landed on the arm of Hanschen’s chair and were quickly disrupted by Hanschen reaching over and pulling them into his lap.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Hanschen scoffed a bit, reaching down to pick a roll of elastic bandage tape from the table beside him. Ernst was familiar with the beige cloth, remembering years of attempting to relieve his aching joints by wrapping them tight. And Hanschen seemed to be familiar with the practice too, unraveling some of the cloth and wrapping it around the arch of Ernst’s right foot. He worked slowly and meticulously, focusing on wrapping tight the bandage to compress Ernst’s aching muscles. “Don’t act like I didn’t hear you hiss and groan everytime you landed a turn. Your leaps looked horrible by the time we finished.” He moved to wrap the bandage around Ernst’s ankle, cradling the ball of his foot with his free hand. “You’ve been overworking yourself lately. It’s obvious.”

“Yeah, no thanks to you,” Ernst’s eyes moved from his bandages foot to Hanschen’s face, his expression soft. If Ernst has just seen his face, he would have thought he was caring for a baby bird and not the mangled and bruised foot of a dancer. “No one else has to work this much.”

“I only do it because I know you’re better than everyone else. I’ve watched you, Ernst.”

Ernst immediately sat up, trying to pull away his foot. But Hanschen tightened his grip before he could, fastening the cloth tight around his ankle. “No, I’m not better-“

“Don’t act like I’m dumb. It’s insulting.” Hanschen let his foot drop to the side, off to the outside of his thigh. And without even looking up, he continued, his head casually shaking with every soft word. “I know you. I’ve seen you. You could be everything, Ernst”

There was a pause. A pause that would usually be cut off by Hanschen ordering Ernst do something else. But this time, Hanschen didn’t speak. Content with the silence, he picked up Ernst’s other foot and began to wrap the bandage around the arch. Ernst waited a bit, waited for Hanschen to do what he always did and change the subject, to make Ernst’s head spin and tongue trip over the response he attempted to formulate. 

Instead, there was quiet. And though that quiet, Ernst spoke. “You can’t keep doing that.”

“Doing what?”

His hands stopped moving. He and Ernst both looked up from his work and their eyes met, the space between their chairs seeming infinite. “Saying some outrageous thing and then acting like it’s nothing,” Ernst huffed, his mind replaying the hundreds of times in the last weeks Hanschen had done exactly that. “The whole ‘I can read you like a book’ act.”

Hanschen, who a moment ago seemed worried, now shrugged and fixed his attention back on the wrap in his hand and fastening it tight around Ernst’s foot. He spoke plainly, like trying to explain the truth to a child. “But I can. You’re easy to read.” A huff of disbelief and he looked back to Ernst, slouching across his seat with his long arms crossed over his chest. He assured firmly. “I know you, Ernst.”

“Do you know me? Like this me. The me I am know.”

“I hope I do. Do you know me?” 

Another pause. Ernst squirmed in his seat, feeling Hanschen’s fingertips against the soft skin of his ankle, wrapping it with care. He suddenly remembered who’s hands they were, how they not only belonged to this Hanschen, but the Hanschen he knew as a child, the Hanschen he spent days over days alongside. How they touched the skin that belonged to not only this Ernst, but the Ernst who felt love under their touch before.

His own mind put him in his place, reminded him not to be so bold, so angry, at the man who brought him into his own home and gave him lessons without even being asked. The man who made his life hell but made his stomach flip and turn as he did so. The man who made his mind fog up with the simplest words.

Ernst spoke what he felt, turning out to look at the grey light flitting in through the curtains. “You make me look like an idiot.”

“Do you feel like an idiot?” Hanschen let Ernst’s other foot fall to the side, wrapped as tightly and securely as the first. With a nod of thanks, Ernst sat up and pulled his legs back, hugging them to his chest. 

When he looked back from the window, he saw Hanschen watching him, brow lined with curiosity. Ernst felt more and more like a private science experiment every day. Today, the combined effects of attractiveness and mysteriousness on the young male psyche. “I do.”

“Well, you’re not. I’ll walk you to the door.”

The walk down the stairs was silent. To Ernst, Hanschen seemed content on what he had learned and was ready to wash his hands clean of Ernst, who grew more scattered and scattered by the minute. Fearing that he had said something wrong, he let it happen and followed with his head bowed. Maybe, he thought, he shouldn’t be so honest. He shouldn’t voice how he feels. Maybe he should have let Hanschen continue to talk circles around him.

Positive that he had somehow ruined everything he had tried to rebuild with his old friend, he stepped out onto the front stoop of the house, turning to say what he was sure were going to be his last words said to Hanschen and the only thing he could think of. “I think you said it wrong.”

“What?” Hanschen was quick to ask, a confused smile blossoming as he looked Ernst over, his back pressed to the doorframe. 

“Earlier you said…” Ernst immediately began to realize how dumb he must’ve sounded. But the little smile on Hanschen’s face told him that the other was intrigued and there was no way he would be able to wiggle his way out of this. “You said: ‘you can be everything’. I think the saying is ‘anything’. People say ‘you can be anything’.”

Hanschen just chuckled, reaching out to ruffle Ernst’s already mess head of brown hair.  
“You’re funny, Ernst.” He mused and went to step inside.But not before stopping, his laughing smile fading so he could say the words he had obviously been rehearsing since he first invited Ernst inside. “That would limit you to one thing. I prefer to think of you as everything. I’ll see you next week.”

Ernst watched the door close and began his walk home. He decided that he was, in fact, hopelessly attracted to Hanschen Rilow, that maybe the world wasn’t as life and death as he thought it was, that he should probably tell Moritz about all of this, and how he wanted to scream about it until his lungs collapsed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please,,, it's not,,,,, it's not,,,,f o ot f e t I sh


	15. Chapter 15

1984

The entire classroom moved in unison, poised bodies moving up and down from their demi-pliés and their toes barely touching the floor as they glides in and out of the tendu exercise Madame Rilow had ordered them to practice. All silent, all focused, all silently fearing the small figure Madame Rilow, heels clicking as she moved down their line on the barre. They trembled and tensed as she approached each pupil, looking them over with a stern eye before telling them precisely what they were doing wrong.

Ernst thought that the students feared Madame because of how mysterious she was. Her name was on the building and came from the mouths of all of their other teachers, but they knew nothing of the actual woman except for what they saw. Her metal tipped cane, her cold eyes, and her twin daughters who would be teaching their section the following morning. But other than that, they knew nothing else about her. Well, at least most knew nothing else about her.

Ernst assumed he was the only one privy to the life of Madame Rilow. Her cute square house, her vacations to other countries, her pride and joy of a son. And he assumed he was also the only one who knew that he knew these secret details.

That was until Madame made her way to Ernst, after she had commented on Ilse’s collapsed lower back. She watched Ernst for a moment of two, studying his foot’s slow to the front and back of himself. He did his best to maintain composed until she leaned closer, speaking slyly in a low voice, “I see the private lessons have been beneficial.”

Frightened, Ernst’s body continued to move gracefully as his mind reeled, attempting to find anything that made sense between the realizations of ‘she knows’ and general shrieking in terror.

But she didn’t give him the time to reply. With a smug face, she stepped toward the girl behind Ernst and quickly picked back up on her usual comments. Like mother ,like son, he thought. 

This moment, this single comment, stayed in his mind for what felt like years. He found himself rocking on his heels through the rest of their excruciatingly long week, waiting to see Hanschen. Ilse noticed this, not shying away from commenting, “Everyday is you just counting down the hours until you see Hanschen.”

He picked up one of the pillows he had been leaning on and threw it at her, hitting her square in the cheek before she leaned over from where she sat at the end of the bed and swung it at his head. “I hate that you’re right,” He grumbled and laid back on Ilse’s bed once more, listening to her and Moritz continue to bicker about nothing.

Ilse and Moritz didn’t seem to mind him though. They found it entertaining to watch Ernst, lovesick and longing. And it also gave them plenty of ammunition to pick on him with. 

Eventually, though, his sacred Saturdays would come. While on Sunday mornings he always shuffled off to church, it was the Saturday mornings that made him feel holy, arriving at the Rilow residence through the pouring November rain. 

Still, soaked to the bone and shivering, he smiled when Hanschen opened the door and ushered him inside. “Get inside. You’ll freeze to death.”

The routine had dug itself deep at this point. Ernst put on his shoes as Hanschen picked through a stack of records that used to belong to his father. Then, Ernst would stand and wait, watching Hanschen move about the room with such familiarity. Sometimes, his foot would glide to the music or he’d lift his hand just so, giving Ernst the slightest hint that dance still lived in his body.

But that was the closest he would ever get to seeing Hanschen dance anywhere besides the pictures on his wall.

“On the barre,” He hummed for the hundredth time. And for the hundredth time, Ernst was quick to walk to the windows and wait for more instruction.

The only difference between this time and every other was, as Hanschen approached his pupil, Ernst spoke the question that had been on his mind all week. “You told your mother?”

Hanschen shrugged, still distracted by a loose thread on his sweater, “I tell her a lot of things.”

“About these lessons,” Ernst guided softly. 

Still maintaining an infuriating casualty, Hanschen looked up and nodded. “Oh, sure. Why?” 

Ernst watched his tutor lean back on his heels, massaging a sore shoulder and looking back to the ground, like he was thinking of something but nothing in particular. “I just…” he began, but thought better. Or thought at all. “Don’t know. I just thought… Maybe that this whole thing was sort of a-”

“A secret?” 

Hanschen cut off Ernst’s ramblings, his amused eyes traced up and down Ernst’s form, taking in the sweaty palms and the uncomfortable shifting. Ernst had never been the one to bring an issue to anyone’s attention. Hanschen smiled, recalling how soft and meek he had been barely a month earlier. More and more often now, Ernst seemed to summon his courage and charge a question into Hanschen. But still, no response. “On the barre.”

Ernst had begun to learn to let things like this go. It was never that Hanschen hadn’t heard him correctly, or that it wasn’t the right time to ask. If there was no reply to his inquiries, it was because Hanschen wasn’t going to reply. And who was he to question it.

The dancing didn’t last long that day. They were only a minute or two in when Hanschen broke the space between them and reached out pulling Ernst’s arm into place by the wrist. But almost immediately his hand recoiled, as if he had been holding a snake instead of the thin wrist of a student. “Christ, Ernst. You’re still freezing cold.”

“Oh, sorry about that,” Ernst sniffled attempted to stay focused, keeping himself on a shaky releve. “I forgot a jacket.”

Hanschen shook his head and stepped away, waving Ernst out of his balance. “No, no, no. You can’t get sick. Sit. I’ll only be a minute.”

He didn’t need to explain anything more before he charged down the stairs. From where Ernst sat on one of the armchairs, he could hear Hanschen busying around the kitchen, opening drawers and pulling cups from cupboards. He was beginning to grow comfortable with the lack of explanations that came with Hanschen Rilow and set to work watching the raindrops race down the windows, always casting his bet on the smaller or slower one, just in case.

When Hanschen came back up the stairs, his footsteps were much slower and accompanied by the rattling of coffee mugs stacked atop each other in one hand. In the other, a steaming porcelain teapot. He managed to balance this precarious bounty across the studio and set it down on the little table in front of Ernst, on top of a stack of threatening looking textbooks.

“It’s lemongrass,” He said and began to pour a mug for Ernst, passing it with a shaky hand. “Careful. It’s hot.”

Ernst muttered some thanks and took a sip, immediately flinching away with a burnt tongue and earning a laugh from the other. The pair sat in quiet ease for some time, the room filled with the soft drum of rain on windows and the wind blowing against the trees outside. Hanschen adored days like these, closing his eyes and letting the cool air envelope him. Ernst, on the other hand, was only reminded of the winters back at home and sniffled, attempting to shove the thought of home away again. 

“‘Calculus: Early Transcendentals’,” Ernst spoke after a spell of silence, tilting his head to read the spine of the book that their teapot was resting on. “That sounds terrifying.” Hanschen chuckled and the younger continued onto the book below it. “‘Calculating the Cosmos: How Mathematics Unveils the Universe’. Light reading?”

Hanschen shrugged, shimmy out the hardcover book from the stack. “I have to keep myself sharp somehow. Can’t go back to school in September without even picking up a calculator.”

“Or an abacus. Do people still use those? It feels very intellectual.”

Hanschen shook his head, hiding his smile behind a sip of tea and watching Ernst pull out the much thicker calculus textbook. “Explain it to me,” He said, holding it out to Hanschen expectantly.

This time he didn’t hide his chuckle. He looked at Ernst, trying to find any sign of a joke, but he saw nothing but innocent doe eyes, waiting for a response, waiting for Hanschen to volley.

“It’s all big,” Hanschen said, taking the book from Ernst’s hand and looking it over. “It’s all a lot bigger than we could ever be or we could ever imagine. And that’s why I like it.”

His eyes stayed locked on the book, reading over the title that he had already read a million times. Ernst waited a moment before responding, watching Hanschen’s gaze fill with an unfamiliar contentment. “How big is that big?”

“Uncountable,” Hanschen sighed out the word, like the letters had been made of magic. “Uncountable like…” Only then did his eyes move from the book to Ernst, “Like all the different movements between each movement. Like all the different ways your body can turn, all the ways you can hold your arms up, all the ways your fingers can extend. All the little decimals between one and two. All the places you can land when you leap from point A to point B.”

“Like infinity?”

Hanschen shook his head. “No, no, no. It ends. But you just don’t know where it all ends. Like all the steps on the sidewalk. You can’t step on a sidewalk for infinity. Eventually your foot will land on the same spot twice. But that’s no number we can fathom.”

Ernst nodded and leaned back in his seat, sipping his now cool coffee and letting his eyes wander over Hanschen before commenting. “You’re obsessed with this ‘Not-Infinity’.”

And then, he fell back to Hanschen, setting the book down beside him and crossing his legs, blocking Ernst off once more. “Well, there are worse things to be obsessed with. I could be on heroin.”

The boys laughed as if nothing had been said. And both would have been content to leave the conversation at that, but still Ernst spoke up. The question seemed to escape his mouth like a secret code. “Would you ever want to live that long? To the uncountable?”

Hanschen looked at him for a moment, the corner of his mouth quirking in a confusion of why Ernst had made a sudden turn to the morbid. “No, I don’t think so,” he said after a moment or two of consideration. “I guess there’s something calming in knowing that, while everything else is uncountable and on-going, I am not.”

“Everything else is everything.”

And then there was a moment. The two young men looked at one another, and understood. There was a brief moment of truce between the pair. What felt like a never-ending battle of the wits had equaled out to just friends, enjoying each other’s company and finally realizing they were doing so. 

“Sure…” Hanschen said, his eyes not leaving Ernst’s. “There is something nice about being just ‘Hanschen’. A finite Hanschen.”

“You’re the only one I’ve ever met.”

“I know it’s an uncommon name. My father was German and-”

“No,” Ernst smiled, stopping any urge to reach out and touch the man across from him. His hand just sat atop his knee so perfectly, placed just so and waiting for Ernst to lean forward and take hold of it. “You’re the only person I’ve ever met who is like you.”

Hanschen’s gaze finally dropped and he took a sip of his tea. He appeared to be fighting the same urge. “Thank you.”

The tea didn’t take much longer to finish. And Hanschen was quick to clean up their empty cups, shaking off whatever strange thoughts had been plaguing him only minutes before about Ernst. But still, when their fingers brushed as he took Ernst’s cup, he halted. “You’re still cold.”

With narrow intention, he set down the cups once more and made a beeline towards the coat rack in the corner, stuck between a bookcase and the wall. From it, he pulled down a thick, brown leather coat. Ernst had seen him in it once or twice, on days when the sun never came out of its hiding place among the clouds. But it seemed completely alien when Hanschen held it out to him. He stared down at it like he had never put on a coat before in his life, not moving until Hanschen chuckled. “So? You can’t get sick, Ernst. That would throw off a whole week or rehearsing-”

“Well I can’t take-”

“-and yet you will,” As he spoke, Hanschen circled around Ernst and held the jacket up behind him, waiting for Ernst to slip his arms into the sleeves. After a hesitation, Ernst put it on with the assistance of Hanschen, who fixed the collar patiently and clicked his tongue.“You should keep it. It looks good on you.”  
“I-I uh…. I…” Ernst’s mouth moved to speak before his brain had fully understood where he was, what had been said, whose hands were placed lightly over his collarbones, whose fingers were fiddling mindlessly with the ancient and wrinkled leather, how close they were.

It was a closeness different than ever before. Previously, the closeness was out of necessity, for instructional purposes, even if there was a spark behind each guided movement. But now, Hanschen didn’t have to be as close as he was. He could have taken a step back and smothered any flam that had lit. But he didn’t. He stood there, his eyes trained on a specific crease in the coat that laid over Ernst’s chest. When his eyes did move to Ernst’s face, any previous or expected expression had been erased. His mouth fell open just slightly and his eyes met Ernst’s. He understood. No words were said, but he completely understood. 

And so did Ernst. It was a silent understanding that he was familiar with. The kind that came before every first kiss. He had felt it when he leaned over to the only other gay boy in his year, after making an excuse to fix his tie. He had felt it with Hanschen a long time ago, back when it was unfamiliar. 

Hanschen’s fingers paused and tightened around the collar, itching to pull Ernst closer and he moved to obey them. Both men inhaled sharply, in unison. Their minds had switched off and the control of their bodies had been taken over by instinct. Everything now felt natural, felt calm, felt ready to run.

“Oh. Oh I’m so sorry.”

Ernst hadn’t realized exactly how close he was to Hanschen until he was aware of another gaze on them. His body went rigid for a moment, before taking a stumbling jump back and seeing the braided girl standing at the top of the stairs. She looked just and embarrassed as Ernst, already looking away and moving to walk back down the stairs. “I’m sorry, I’ll just go wait down-”

“Yes, yes!” Hanschen’s voice jumped out suddenly. He cleared his throat as he spoke, attempting to bring back the calm composure he had been so proud of. “Go wait downstairs. I’ll be right with you, Martha.”

The two were quiet as Martha walked back down the stairs, her footsteps rushed and flustered. And they remained quiet for a few moments after that, both staring at the place where she had been. “Why’s she here?” Ernst with a voice like a glass balancing at the edge of a table. 

“Her lesson isn’t until noon, but I…” His eyes moved to the clock on the wall for the first time in a while. “Oh, I lost track of time- Wait, Ernst! Wait!” 

His cries didn’t stop Ernst, who was already halfway down the stairs and to the door. Hanschen charged after him, his bare feet loud on the wood floor. “Ernst, come on, what are you-!”

“Do you do this with everyone?”

He had stopped just before the front door, his hand poised on the handle as he turned back. Hanschen stopped short and almost slipped on the tile floor, “What?” He tried to cover the confusion with a breathy chuckle. “Ernst, what are you talking about?”

“Do you make everyone….” He stopped himself, his eyes moving from Hanschen to Martha, still sitting at the table and staring at the two like they were in a movie. “Whatever.”

He wanted to slam the door shut behind him, but Hanschen caught it before he could, following Ernst onto the front steps and repeating for what must’ve been the hundredth time. “Ernst, please.”

“Leave me alone!”

“Do I make everyone what?” He pressed on, his expression showing a sudden desperation Ernst didn’t know was possible. Even in his flushed faced panic, he still had to know what others thought of him. It seemed to be a personal plague with no cure. 

With balled fists, Ernst let loose a furious string of words. “Do you make everyone feel this special? Do you convince everyone that they’re special to you just to get them to-FUCK!” Frustrated, Ernst began to tear off the jacket he had been given, attempting to throw it back at Hanschen but getting tangled up in the process. “You narcissistic ass!”

“Ernst, please!” His hands grabbed onto Ernst’s shoulders, making the younger man stop suddenly. He opened his mouth, but paused. He looked as if he was going to try to convince Ernst of something, then stopped. “Please just… Wear that home. It’s cold.”

Ernst scoffed a bit, waiting for Hanschen to say more. But he didn’t, he just let go of Ernst and stepped away. And after a brief, shocked pause, Ernst shrugged the leather coat back onto his shoulders and took off down the steps, the rain still soaking his hair and through the bottom of his dance shoes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> since writing chapter 14 and this chapter I have  
-dropped out of college  
-moved from one end of the state to the other  
-moved into my own house  
-started working a real job  
-and got a boyfriend
> 
> so, this is my long way of saying: Sorry for the wait.


	16. Chapter 16

1979

Ernst didn’t remember falling asleep. He could remember Hanschen coming by his house as the sun was setting, pulling his bike up the driveway. He could remember riding behind Hanschen through town, speeding all the way from Ernst’s neighborhood to the outside of town, abandoned in the early evening darkness.

Hanschen threw his bike down in the grass on top of a ridge that hung over the road leading in and out of Glenridding. They were surrounded on all sides by skinny trees and lush green plants clinging to deteriorating fences. The night was silent, the sky was clear, and Hanschen had just checked out a book on astronomy.

Ernst remembered sitting beside him for some time, listening to him rattle of names of stars that slowly became more nonsensical and fuzzy. He watched Hanschen’s hand, pale in the stark moonlight, point up through the cracks between branches. His voice was slow and melodic, urging Ernst to stop listening eventually and let his eyes close.

And then, all he remembered was waking up. The cold night breeze brushed the side of his face and shook him back to the real world, where he was startled for a moment when he realized he wasn’t in his own bed. But after a few moments recollection, he sighed a breath of relief, wondering exactly how long he had been out there and knowing that his parents probably hadn’t even noticed anyway.

It wasn’t until he shifted and moved to roll over onto his back that he felt the arm wrapped around his shoulders, and then the form he was laying up against and on top of. He realized that he was being cradled against Hanschen Rilow’s side, face pressed into the warmth of his sweater. While one of his arms was trapped between his own body and the grass, the other was thrown over Hanschen’s chest, moving up and down with the steady rhythm of his breathing. His hand was holding tight onto the fabric of Hanschen’s shirt, like a baby with a blanket. Part of his would have been embarrassed if Hanschen wasn’t asleep.

Ernst was sure that he hadn’t fallen asleep like this. He couldn’t imagine a single scenario where both boys would find this position while conscious. Besides, he was quick to think, he slept on his back anyway. 

He felt Hanschen shift, just the slightest, his free hand moving from resting on his own chest to cupping Ernst’s hand, his fingertips rubbing just slightly over the raw skin of Ernst’s knuckles. The warmth of the touch was pleasant, making a blush form on Ernst’s face. He would have wondered why it felt so nice, to be held against his friend like this, but his sleepy mind figured pretty quickly that it was no use. He knew that the thought would only ring the same imminent shame he had been feeling all month.

For now, he decided to be content with this moment, the way the touch made his heart beat seem to sync with Hanschen’s, the smile he couldn’t attempt to contain. 

But this didn’t last long. He was brought back to reality a few minutes later, just as he was fading back to sleep, by the sound of a car rumbling along the road below them.

It came and went with absolutely no possibility of seeing the boys tucked away on the ridge above the road, but it was still a shaking reminder. It reminded him that there were others in this universe. When previously, it had felt like just him and Hanschen. Now, Ernst was forced to think of the others that could pass by. And even if they didn’t pass by, even if they saw Hanschen and Ernst by daylight the next day, completely innocent and apart. He thought they would know. That the touch of a boy would stain his skin and everyone would know.

He wasn’t sure what exactly they would know, but he was sure that it wasn’t something good.

His heart now racing, Ernst tried his best to wriggle out of Hanschen’s grip without waking him. And he seemed to succeed, sliding across the grass on his bottom and away from the warm spot he had left. He looked around at the scene of his crime, the book beside Hanschen left open, their bikes discarded in a pile. If anyone came across this, they would know.

And whatever it was, nobody could know. Ernst wouldn’t let them. 

He didn’t look at Hanschen as he walked to retrieve his bike, his feet falling quiet and focused in the grass. He couldn’t risk looking back and feeling that contentedness once more, that want to lay back down in his arms and feel whatever it was he was feeling.

No, he told himself, then it would be too late. Then they would know.

The air was cold and he was now fully awake as his eyes adjusted to the darkness and he tried to find the path they had come up from the road on. Eventually, he settled to just try his best to silently slide down a less steep part and then ride like his life depended on it back home.

So caught up in his panicked planning, he didn’t turn back to look at Hanschen once. Because if he did, he would have seen that the older boy had sat up, the hands that once held Ernst sitting hopelessly on his knees. He would have seen in the bright moonlight that his eyes were wide open and awake, his sadness guarded by solemness. He would have known that Hanschen hadn’t fallen asleep, but instead was laying still out of fear of waking up the boy he had pulled into an embrace hours ago. He wouldn’t have left.

But he didn’t turn back. He just made his unskilled and noisy way down the dark path back to the road, leaving in his wake snapped twigs and Hanschen holding back shameful tears.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't be alarmed, bitches just be renaming the entire work. And I'm bitches.  
Previously titled "Truly See and Be Seen"

1984

“Thea, can I borrow one of your students?”

The entire class paused what they were doing to look up at Hanschen, standing in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. Thea, who had been mid instruction when he appeared in the doorway, sighed. “Sure. Ernst, go ahead.”

Then, all eyes turned to Ernst, who had just finished his across the floor combination only moments before the door opened. A little murmur flitted through the students, suspicions already uprising at who Hanschen was and why Thea knew who he wanted without asking. Ilse and Moritz turned to the others as their friend nodded and slipped out of the classroom, already constructing some sort of excuse to make the strange situation seem less strange. 

“Is this some sort of assertion of dominance?” Ernst asked as soon as the door closed, leaving the pair alone on the landing. 

“It’s not,” Hanschen was quick to huff, his arms crossed and his eyes cast to the ground, only coming up to look at Ernst as he stated. “And I don’t, by the way.”

Ernst, who was completely prepared to start yet another spat with Hanschen, was stopped short. He sputtered over his own words for a moment before asking in a small voice. “Err… What?”

“I don’t make everyone feel special or, well... that special. Like you…. Said…” Hanschen shook his head, strands of golden blond falling out of their place and hanging over his eyes. He started again, quickly, tripping over his own words. “I mean, I never wanted to humilate you. I never meant to… And if I did…” There was quiet between them as Ernst studied his face, trying to put a finger on what it was he was seeing now. Hanschen seemed much more genuine than ever before. But he also seemed much more guarded, like he was aware of the chink in the armor that he was showing Ernst. His voice was soft as he spoke, “Haven’t you ever had to keep up appearances?”

Ernst let himself relax, leaning back against the cool stone of the handrail and thinking for a few moments. Although the words weren’t overtly said, he could tell what Hanschen meant by shy look in his eyes as his gaze flicked anywhere else in the room besides Ernst. “No. No I never really had to.” Ernst assured after a brief pause. Sucking on his teeth, he muttered, “I think everyone always…always knew.”

And on any other day, that would have been it. In any other conversation with anyone else, those words would have been said and it would have ended, an understanding struck between two men knowing the other’s pain. But after a shaky swallow, Hanschen spoke, his fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt. “Was anyone ever mad when they found out?”

Ernst shook his head, silent at first.But after a moment of thought, he continued. “Well, after word got out to the boys I went to school with they gave me hell. But I was already getting hell for dancing so it wasn’t too bad.”

Hanschen nodded, his eyes fixed to Ernst’s shoes. And then, in an even smaller voice, “Do you think anyone would be mad at me?”

“No,” Ernst was quick to confirm, his tone breathy. Anyone walking by would hear nothing but murmurs, never suspecting the small smile that was creeping its way to Hanschen’s lips. Hanschen continued to nod, his terrified gaze softening to something warm that reminded Ernst of summer when he finally looked up. “Well,” Ernst continued after returning the uncertain smile. “I think Martha might be a bit sad. She really likes you, I can tell.”

Hanschen chuckled, scanning the room around them once more before looking at Ernst again, the regular spark returning to his eyes. “It’s what’s expected of me at this point. Like how it’s expected for Melchior to sleep with his students.”

“He what?!”

Hanschen attempted to shush Ernst through their giggles. “Yes, yes. But you didn’t hear it from me.” 

Standing straight, Ernst looked back to the classroom door and sighed. “Everyone must be wondering what I’m doing out here.”

“Skip class and come get coffee with me,” Hanschen interjected before Ernst could move to go back inside. “I’m fucking exhausted. Come on, Ernst.”

Shaking his head, Ernst stepped away from Hanschen and back to the closed door. “You know, I have to pay for these classes, Hansi.” The ancient nickname knocked him back a bit, and Ernst could tell, turning back to smile at the dumbfounded blond. “And next time, just say sorry. It wouldn’t hurt to practice that.”

Hanschen smiled back knowingly, tapping his temple with his index finger and replying, “I’ll make a note of that. But for now, truce?”

“Truce? I didn’t know we were fighting.”

Rolling his eyes, Hanschen made his way back towards the stairs. With his strut returning, he called over his shoulder. “Aren’t we always? I’ll see you on Saturday.”

Hanschen’s footsteps echoed through the large room, accompanied by his faint humming of a song Ernst was sure he had heard playing on some old record player before. He listened for a moment with his hand on the doorknob, ready to return to the class he was missing. But he couldn’t help but tear away from it and follow the voice in his head that told him to rush to the railing and call down to the first level just as Hanschen was opening the front door to leave. “Truce!” He practically shouted, leaning over the railing like a child at an amusement park, “Truce!”

All Hanschen did was laugh. But Ernst could feel the glow still with him after the door had closed.


	18. Chapter 18

1985

“Give me one reason not to drop out!” Moritz’s voice echoed through the rehearsal hall. Both Ilse and Melchior looked up to look at their friend, who broke the comfortable silence sitting between the three, to see him looking down at his dance history homework as if he hadn’t just yelled out.

Ernst laughed at the boy sitting on the floor beside him. “What?”

Moritz picked up one of the baby carrots from the bag sitting at Ernst’s feet. “Like, just one, y’know. That’s all I need. Just one reason.” He finally looked up from the papers and his eyes flicked between the other two expectantly. “See, you two can’t think of one either.”

“Well,” Ilse mused, her gaze still locked on her reflection in the mirrors. Although Ernst had been the one to suggest they rent a room to rehearse, she was the only one who was actually dancing. Her balance remaining precise, she spoke as she slowly lifted her overhead in a développé , “You would miss Ernst and I too much.”

“Not a good enough reason- ow, fuck!” He hissed as Ernst elbowed him in the ribs. 

“Stay because there’s a reason you got picked,” Ernst reminded Moritz as he rubbed his ribs with a bit more dramatics than Ernst thought necessary.

Moritz leaned back against the wall, completely abandoning hope on what Ernst had only just realized was last week's homework. “I’ll just tell them to give my spot to some poor kid from some like third world country. See, turned the whole thing on it’s side, y’know? Now I’m a fuckin’ saint.”

“You are a fucking idiot,” Muttered Ilse through their laughter before suggesting. “If you drop out you will never get to fuck Melchior Gabor.”

He grunted out an agreement between bites of carrot. “Ding ding ding! And that is the winning answer.” Unlike Ernst, Ilse didn’t laugh, but simply rolled her eyes and attempted to return to her rehearsing. For a few moments, the room was peaceful and content, filled only by the sound of Ilse’s feet on the floor and Moritz still fighting off the last few giggles. 

“I don’t think he’s that hot,” Ernst added once the commotion had died, earning a sudden, brash laugh from Moritz.

“Oh sure!” He exclaimed, sitting up on his knees to glower down at Ernst. “I forgot you were the epitome of taste in men. I mean, you’re into Hanschen Rilow, who dresses like my sophomore English teacher.”

Ilse stopped her across the floors to defend the giggling boy. “Moritz, maybe cardigans can be sexy.”

Moritz’s comedically over the top rage, once directed at a cowering Ernst, suddenly shifted to Ilse. “Oh, you take that back!” The last word punctuated by Moritz reeling back to throw a baby carrot at Ilse’s face. She shrieked and shielded herself before charging Moritz, her ballet slipper suddenly in her hand and preparing to strike.

The two idiots fought for a few more passing seconds, their shouts and giggles and calls to Ernst for aid echoing through the studio, down the barren halls of the academy, and out into the freezing night. The sounds made the smile on Ernst’s face grow and his permanently blushing cheeks turn an even deeper pink. It was these moments that he would look on, confident in the fact that he got his own coming of age story. It was no grand travel across New York, or finding a dead body with your friends, or fifties gang fight, but there was something born in the walls of those studios and in the air of those late nights that made him sure he had done something right.

But he was sure the way he felt when Hanschen was pressed close to him was something that would never be written about in those teenage novels. He had come to terms with his attraction to men years ago, back when the options were either learn to love it or be miserable forever. That wasn’t what was bothering him now. Now it was this specific attraction to this specific man that made him feel insane every Saturday morning. 

And Hanschen made it clear he was aware of this all. Previously, every time he touched Ernst, his hand might have lingered or his breath might have hitched. But now, any time he was near Ernst he could feel himself being pulled closer, inch by inch.

In order to keep from distraction, he distanced himself the best he could. He told Ernst where to go and what to do from his place pressed up against the wall. His cloudy eyes followed Ernst’s form around the studio, pressing into every curve and point of the solo they had put together. It was sloppy in January, but slowly, it had been molded into something Ernst was proud of by the time the sun returned in March. 

But still, not good enough. Never good enough for Hanschen.

“Jesus Christ, engage your back, Ernst!” He called one morning, about an hour after the session was supposed to end. “You look like a fucking goose.”

Ernst stumbled a bit in an attempt to freeze when his body was already set to move on from the arabesque, straightening out his spine. He turned his head to look at Hanschen, who was still leaning against the wall. “Is this better, your highness?”

“No, keep your hips square, smartass,” Hanschen scoffed, his arms were crossed but his weight was shifting, itching to get up and show Ernst what he meant. His issue with putting his thoughts into words was never an issue until now, now that touching Ernst made his mind turn to mush. Ernst shifted and held the position briefly before attempting to move out of it and into the upcoming turn. But Hanschen’s voice stopped him. “Your back dipped again. Do it again.”

“You sound like your mother,” Ernst grumbled in passing before stretching his leg back behind him. When he heard Hanschen sigh out of disappointment, he let his body relax and glared at the other man, his body still in his sloppy half attempt of grace. “Well if it’s so important, why don’t you just show me?”

There was a pause before Hanschen pushed himself off the wall and started walking, a pause where Ernst studied his face, waiting for his bluff to be called. Once Hanschen took a few steps towards him, Ernst immediately sprang back into position, his muscles tensing and relaxing with wild anticipation. 

Both men wondered how the other could have such an effect on them, but both gave up on questioning it and instead let themselves lean into the feeling, imagining what else it could lead to in a perfect world.

One hand rested on the small of Ernst’s back, pushing it up into place. The other pressed to his stomach, causing Ernst to flex without even thinking. Hanschen marveled wordlessly at the glory of it all for a moment or two before pushing Ernst’s torso up and forward. How gently he touched and how easily Ernst moved with his commands was something akin to magic, he nodded. 

‘Isn’t it perfect’ Ernst wanted to say. ‘How the body is made to be held? To be touched? How our bodies match and align?’

Instead, the words that hurried from his lips were, “When will you kiss me?”

Hanschen, who had been focused on the movement of Ernst’s back, looked up at the man standing before him. He stood to the side of Ernst, who was staring straight ahead, attempting not to show how nervous he was growing. For a moment, Hanschen studied the side of Ernst’s face, how his long eyelashes blinked rapidly over freckle covered skin. Thought about how easy it would be for him to lean in, to tilt Ernst’s head just so and answer the question. 

“You’ve gotten brave,” he said, just as Ernst suspected he was going to say nothing. His hands dropped down to Ernst’s hips, lacing around his suddenly very sensitive waist. When Ernst turned to look at him, he saw his lips pursed in a very slight smile, amused. 

“I don’t want things to end like they did before,” Hanschen could feel his stomach move up and down with every uneven breath. 

“Then what would you prefer happen?” His hands moved up to either side of Ernst’s neck, pushing his head straight ahead. 

“I’d prefer that you kiss me.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

Neither man moved. Ernst didn’t realize he was holding his breath until Hanschen spoke again, shattering the murderous silence. “We were kids then.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

Ernst finally broke his stillness to look Hanschen in the eye. He let his leg come back down to the ground and said, with only a few inches separating his lips from Hanschen’s. “So you remember.”

Hanschen nodded, his eyes keeping Ernst’s gaze as if to challenge him. His perfect confidence didn’t break, but Ernst could still see through it. Now that he had a glimpse into Hanschen’s core, he couldn’t look at his tutor without seeing the anxious, unsure man Hanschen let him see before. But that was deep underneath his stern, cold eyes, that looked Ernst over once or twice before continuing. “I don’t think I could forget. But if you want to talk while you rehearse, you’ll have to get better.”


	19. Chapter 19

1979

From above, the boys looked like pale frogs gliding around the shore. Just two skin colored dots among the many buzzing about the lake, paddling their kayaks or soaking in the late July sunshine. Many bodies were with them when they first arrived around noon, splashing each other as they swam from rock to rock. But as the hours ticked by, they all wandered off, leaving just Hanschen on one of the large, flat stones that poked out of the water and Ernst swimming laps around him.

“It’s strange,” Hanschen hummed as Ernst got out of the water, tugging himself up onto the warm, dry surface of the rock. Ernst looked over to see his friend laying on his back, his fact tilted to the sun and his eyes shut as he spoke. “We’ve been here all day and you haven’t complained about being bored yet.”

As Hanschen snickered at his own commentary, he was blind to Ernst, who reached down into the water below them and splashed up a jet of water onto his bare body. “Cause I’m not bored yet, asshole!” The spatter punctuated his exclamation.

Immediately, Hanschen yelped and sat up, his eyes squinted and trained on Ernst, who was perched on the edge of their little island. “I’m trying to stay warm, prick!” He reached down into the water and returned the gesture, throwing more cold water onto Ernst’s already soaked form. 

The younger just laughed, raising his hands to protect himself before calling out between giggles. “Alright, alright. Truce!”

Hanschen’s attack ended as abruptly as it started and, shuddering from the chill of the water droplets still on his skin, he laid back down. “Don’t block the sun,” he said to Ernst, who was now standing atop the rock near Hanschen’s feet and surveying the shore. “I’m trying to tan.” 

“Yeah, you need it.”

His hand dipped down into the water again, staying there as a silent threat. Ernst attempted to stifle a giggle in response as he sat down on the edge of the warm rock, his legs still submerged and kicking at the clearwater. Minutes passed by, the only sound being the white noise of the families giggling and paddling around the lake. All distracted by their own days, their own jokes and their own spot on the sand. None of them seemed to notice Ernst and Hanschen in their warm weather daze, sitting atop their private, wordless kingdom.

THis made Ernst breathe a sigh of relief. And after looking wildly around the lake to find anyone looking back, he finally looked over to Hanschen.

Just the action of looking at him made his skin feel hot. Ever since the night on the ridge, he couldn’t help but feel a rush of adrenaline every time he was around Hanschen. Like he was doing something he shouldn’t. And looking at him was like sealing his fate. 

But he couldn’t help it.

Hanschen laid comfortably on the uncomfortable rock, his eyes closed and his bare chest moving up and down in the slow rhythm of his breathing. He looked so serene. Like the universe could explode around him any second, and he would be content. 

He looked like an angel in those old renaissance paintings. Laid out and blissful, floating on clouds through the European countryside. His cherub pink lips just barely open and his wing like lashes laying soft over tanned skin.

Ernst jumped a bit when Hanschen moved, but it was only to move his hand up to rest beneath his head. Ernst’s gaze moved from the steady movement of Hanschen’s chest, to the soft skin of his arm, swelling with the early formation of muscles. Ernst could not help but recall the strength behind those arms as they pulled him into a hug, how gentle they had been around his sleeping form in the grass. 

“What are you staring at?”

Suddenly inhaling, Ernst looked up to see Hanschen’s eyes open and expectant. He cleared his throat and attempted to string together a set of coherent words under Hanschen’s gaze. Although he had been aware of the fluttering feeling in his stomach that he assumed was nerves, he became suddenly very aware of the heat rising to his face. “Nothing,” He was quick to respond. Hanschen nodded, still unconvinced, and studied his friend’s worried face. 

“Alright,” He muttered. “Is something wron-”

“No, I’m fine,” Ernst looked back to the water and attempted to steady his breathing that had become rushed and panicked. The pushing, warm feeling that had been forming in the bottom of his stomach still refused to leave, now accompanied by the growing embarrassment seizing his chest. 

“Fine?”

“Fine.”

Hanschen let out a little ‘huh’ and leaned back once more. He couldn’t help but smile a bit, content in the fact that Ernst had returned the looks he had tried to hide as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, at least this quarantine is good for at least one reason.


	20. Chapter 20

1985

“Ernst, you’re doing some amazing work. You know that, right?”

The lonely voice echoed down the steps, circling the rounded walls and landing heavy on Ernst just before he had pushed through the front doors. It was confident, seemingly competing with the wind that had been pounding against ancient window panes and tearing at the roof. Ernst let out a sigh before turning. He never thought he’d say this, but he was tired of being called after by attractive men.

“Good morning, Mister Gabor.”

He stayed at the top of the stairs, leaning lackadaisically on the banister and smiling. “Where are you off to? The weather is horrible.”

“Nowhere,” He lied, fixing the strap of his dance bag. Mister Gabor watched with amused eyes. He leaned deeper against the banister, propping himself up on his elbows, catlike in his ease.

He continued knowingly. “You’re really impressive, Ernst. I don't think many people are naturals at this kinda stuff.”

“But you think I am?”

“I think you might be,” He took a quick breath and shot out, a bit bolder than before. “You just need a push in the right direction.” When Ernst didn’t immediately respond, he continued. “To keep the fire lit. Do you agree?”

Before he could reply, Ernst was startled by the door opening behind up. He gasped and jumped away as the heavy door shuddered open and allowed in a gust of wind and a completely disheveled Hanschen. The man looked first to Ernst and opened his mouth to speak when his eyes locked with Mister Gabor, still smirking above them. 

“Hanschen, what-”

“Good morning, Hanschen.”

“Good morning, Melchior.”

Hanschen stepped completely into the entrance hall now, broad shouldered and head high, his messy mop of blond falling down around his face. The two men said nothing for a moment or two, just looked at the other with unphased faces. Hanschen was the first to speak. “Do you always spend your weekends at the school?”

Quick to reply, he remained slouched and calm. “Could I ask you the same?”

Hanschen’s head turned to Ernst, who still stood beside him feeling idle and anxious by this all. “I came to walk with Ernst.”

At the statement, Mister Gabor stood up straight, mimicking Hanschen’s own stance, his eyes suddenly very knowing and flicking between the two below him. “To where? To nowhere?”

Hanschen shook his head, relenting in the childish game that the two were accustomed to. He turned back to the door, shoving it open and allowing the wind to pour in once more. He looked to Ernst, urging him to follow as he left. But before the pair could slip away, Mister Gabor called. “I didn’t know you were this close to the students, Hanschen.”

Without hesitation, Hanschen looked over his shoulder. “Could I ask you the same?”

Ernst watched Mister Gabor shrink before him, realizing that Hanschen had won whatever ruleless game they had been playing. He still tried to maintain some semblance of dignity as he huffed and shrugged the others off before making his way towards the halls. They waited with held breath as Melchior’s footsteps grew quieter and quieter until they had vanished and left the two with nothing but each other and the harsh wails of wind.

Then, they spoke simultaneously. 

“What were you two talking about?”

“Since when do you walk me to your house?”

Both questions hung unanswered in the air between them. They stared at each other in those tense seconds, waiting for the other to respond. When Hanschen looked away from Ernst he spoke, cheeks and nose still flushed pink. “I don’t know. I just thought something was off. And I was right.”

“So you can spidey-sense when I’m talking to one of my teachers?” Ernst chuckled, chewing in his tongue and wading in the disbelief.

“It wasn’t just talking,” Hanschen insisted, finally looking Ernst in the eyes and revealing the growing frustration. 

“Then what was it?”

Ernst crossed his arms and waited for Hanschen to find the words. He ran a hand through his blond tangle of thorns as he spoke in words clear and concise, like he knew it all too well. “He was trying to cat-and-mouse you, Ernst. He does that to everyone.”

“What?” He found himself laughing again, looking around to see if anyone else was in the room and was also witnessing what he thought was a cruel joke. “Like what you do?”

Hanschen scoffed, meeting Ernst with energy equal antagonistic. “I’m not half as obvious.”

“I wish you could hear yourself,” Was all Ernst could say before he turned his back to Hanschen and started walking quickly back towards his dorm.

Quick to call out, Hanschen began to follow, his face suddenly serious as opposed to the shocked smile Ernst was still wearing. “Where are you go-”

“I’m going back to my dorm. I’m not going to rehearse with you.”

Ernst spoke over his shoulder, his face only speeding up as he turned down the side hallway and rushed to find his way back to the harsh courtyard. From behind him came Hanschen’s hurried footsteps, following him through the empty corridor. “What? Why?”

“I’m fed up.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

Ernst stopped his rush and turned to Hanschen, who was trying to maintain his dignity in the chase, his hands in his coat pockets and his glare set on Ernst. He looked like a parent chasing after a stubborn child, equally exasperated and confused. He had to stop himself suddenly, leaning back on his heels as to not run into Ernst, now standing still with one finger pointing at Hanschen’s chest. “You are in no position to act like a jealous teenager.”

For a brief moment, Hanschen might have defended himself, asking what the hell Ernst was talking about and brushing away everything like it was just how he always was.

But he didn’t, instead he let out a long sigh, tilting his head up to look at the ceiling. “You’re right,” He relented. “I don’t have the right to be jealous.”

“Then why are you acting like you do?”

Hanschen looked at Ernst again, actually looked. His normally tan, bright face looked dull in the reflection of the grey sky that poured in from the row of large windows they stood before. His freckles now looked like fleks of spilled coffee on parchment paper, lining his furrowed brow. But his eyes were genuine, staring at Hanschen and waiting for an answer. 

“I don’t know.” As he spoke, he pulled his hands from his pockets and rubbed absentmindedly at the front of his pants. He was honest, laying himself bare before Ernst and expecting the same. Ernst nodded, the anger vanishing from his face and leaving only hopelessness. Enough to say anything, to do anything. 

“Kiss me.”

“What?”

Ernst let out a long sigh, dropping his bag down to the floor beside him. “For fucks sake,” He ran his hands through his hair and spoke slowly, having thought these words a million times over. “Just fucking kiss me so we can end this all. So I can stop feeling like this and it can all be over and you and I can go back to normal. Back to nothing. Back to acting like we don’t know each other.”

Hanschen just stared, trying to understand the words that were flying at him, process Ernst’s request. He bit at his lip before saying in a voice much smaller than before. “Is that what you want? You want this all to end?”

All of their unspoken words were spoken there, standing in the middle of the deserted corridor, each waiting for the other to give in. Relent that a game was being played, relent that this is what they were waiting for, relent that something had to change before they both went completely insane.

“It’s better than whatever we’re doing now.”

No other instructions had to be ordered. In one swift motion, Hanschen stepped into Ernst and reached up to place his hands on either side of his face. With a gentle touch, he pulled Ernst’s face down to meet his, pulled Ernst’s lips against his. It was all quick and precise at first but melted into something slow and honest. Hanschen’s fingers wound up into the little strands of Ernst’s hair, clutching at him like he was made of gold and could slip away in an instant.

Ernst, for a moment, did nothing. Shocked that this had happened, even though he had asked for it. But once the trance had left him, he found himself grabbing at the front of Hanschen’s shirt, pulling him closer until the two were pressed together. He didn’t realize how desperate this moment had become until it was over, ending when Hanschen stepped back once more, his cold palms leaving Ernst's cheeks feeling hot and flushed. 

“I’m sorry.”

Still trying to catch his breath and slow his mind, Ernst had to stop himself from pulling Hanschen back in for more. Instead, he asked, in a tone as hushed as Hanschen’s, “For what?”

“For everything.”

Hanschen didn’t kiss him again. No matter how badly he wanted to, he couldn’t kiss him again. Instead, he turned on his heel and hurried back down from where they had come, his hands pushed back into his pockets.

Ernst did not follow. He just stayed there, his arms hanging aimlessly to his sides and watching Hanschen go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some 1 let me go back 2 work I am DYING


	21. Chapter 21

1985

“Never have I ever… gotten arrested,” Ernst watched gleefully as Ilse rolled her eyes and took a sip of the cheap wine she had stolen from the liquor store. Moritz, who was leaning against the side of Ernst’s bed, took a wincing sip as well, almost spitting it out over Ernst’s floor between coughs. “Really, Moritz?”

“I do not believe it,” Ilse laughed and took another sip, completely forgoing the rules Moritz had explained over a hundred times. “I can not imagine you in handcuffs.”

Between face-redding hacks, Moritz shrugged. “It was for….fuck!” He let out another long string of coughs. “It was for loitering.”

Ernst laughed, pulling his legs even closer to his chest and setting his chin on top of his knees. The three had been in their little circle on Ernst’s dorm room floor since their rehearsal ended, unconscious of the hours that had ticked by and the fact that they probably should have lowered their voices a bit. “I don’t think that counts. That’s barely a crime.”

“They drove me home in the back of the car.”

“That’s not getting arrested!” Ilse practically shouted. As she spoke, she counted on her fingers, her wine threatening to slosh out of her plastic cup. “Arrested is cuffs, fingerprints, mugshots, that little cell they put you in.”

“Since when do you get to decide what does and doesn’t count as an arrest?” Moritz bickered back at her, verging on becoming furious.

She shrugged, smirking like any woman would watching someone’s downfall, and watched with Ernst as Moritz got up and stormed over to Ernst’s turntable. He picked up the Fleetwood Mac record that Ilse had brought over and flipped it over to the B side as she spoke. “My turn. Never have I ever slept with someone at this school.”

“Ya can’t ask that, Ilse. It’s a targeted question, ” Moritz groaned without looking at the other two. But Ilse just hushed him, her eyes trained on Ernst, confused with a still entirely full cup. There was a pause as she waited.

“Well? Are you not going to drink?”

At her question, Moritz turned around and stared at Ernst as well. The pair both waited expectantly, looking between Ernst’s furrowed brow to the untouched cup on the floor beside him. “What?” He asked, suddenly equally offended as he was confused. “What makes you two think I’ve slept with someone that goes here?”

“Hanschen counts, y’know! His name is on the signs,” Moritz sang, coming back to sit in the circle. Both he and Ilse held an air of casualty, like they knew exactly what was supposed to happen and thought Ernst was the one falling behind.

“I have never slept with Hanschen,” Ernst scoffed, speaking slow as to make every word a point.

The other two looked at Ernst, then to each other, with mouths open in surprise. And then spoke simultaneously in a jumble of ‘what’s and ‘are you kidding’s. “No way, there’s absolutely no way!” Moritz demanded. “We were sure of it. Ya go over there every single Saturday!”

“For hours!”

“For. Hours,” Moritz ran a hand through his clump of curls, or at least attempted to before his hand was stopped by the mass of tangles. “You’re kidding, right? Absolutely kidding! You had to have fucked him! You’re an idiot for not fucking him!”

“Then what do you two do all day!” Ilse gasped, taking another big sip and completely drowning her cup.

Ernst couldn’t help but laugh, rubbing his forehead in disbelief. “We just dance. We talk and we dance.”

“That’s it?” Asked Ilse

“That’s it.”

“No sex?” Asked Moritz

“No sex.”

“Nothing?” 

“Well…. We kissed once.”

Immediately, the pair erupted in a fit of shrieks and Moritz’s steady repeating of “I knew it! I fuckin’ knew it!”

“It was once!” Ernst called over them in a hope to hush them and not get another complaint to the RA. “It was just once and it was like a week ago.”

“Have you two talked about it?” Ilse attempted to ask before Moritz cut her off, demanding to know: “How was it?”

Attempting to hide any nervousness with laughter, Ernst chuckled. “I don’t know. It was fine.”

Raising her eyebrow, Ilse scoffed. “Fine?”

Truthfully, Ernst had been trying to avoid asking himself that exact question. It came up every so often, threatening to break his happy ignorance by reminding him that he liked kissing Hanschen. That he wanted to kiss Hanschen again. Even though the kiss was meant to be closure, all it did was make Ernst want more. He pressed his forehead to his knees and sighed. “I guess. Maybe better than fine.”

Moritz, who was now laying on his back in what Ernst assumed was his dramatic expression of disbelief, threw his hands up towards the ceiling. “Good? Is the word you’re looking for ‘good’, Ernst?”

For the rest of the night, Ernst made an attempt to forget Hanschen once more, like he had before. He joined Ilse in a drunken rendition of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, he repeatedly threatened to throw Moritz out the window, he let both of them borrow his clothes and sleep on the floor, like any other Friday night. But no matter the laughs shared or the fights started, he couldn’t shake the idea that it didn’t work, that now he just wanted Hanschen more.

He was the last to fall asleep, just as the sun was rising and glaring through his blinds. But it felt like he was only asleep for a moment before he was awakened by his body being shaken.

“Ernst! Ernst, get up!” Ilse demanded as she shook him by the shoulders. 

The young man let out a grunt and pulled himself upright, squinting his eyes to see Ilse, leaning over him with her hands on her hips. “What the fuck?” He muttered, his voice so low it surprised Ilse, who was used to Ernst’s words being high and airy. 

“It’s Saturday. You have to go to your lesson with Hanschen in an hour.”

Ernst let out a long sigh, sitting all the way up as Ilse perched gently at the foot of his bed, watching expectantly. “I wasn’t going to go today. I think things are over between-”

“No they’re not!”

Both Ernst and Ilse looked over at the pile of blankets on the ground that Mortiz was under. The only sign of the boy was the puff of black hair sticking out from underneath and his voice, slow and groggy, huffing out. “You’re in fucking love with him, ya’fucking idiot. Go to the lesson.”

Ilse’s face lit up in a smile as she watched Ernst, hung over and exhausted, pull himself out of bed and walk towards his closet, mumbling to himself and tripping over Moritz in the process. And that smile remained until she and Moritz, both in yesterday’s outfits, walked Ernst to the Rilow’s front door. Arm in arm, the pair waved goodbye, their eyes alit with knowing. 

“You are supposed to be happy, Ernst,” Ilse assured just before Ernst’s finger could press the doorbell. “If this is going to make you happy, you are supposed to do it.”

“If he’s going to make ya happy, you’re supposed to do him.”

“Shut up, Moritz.”

And still giggling, Ernst waited until they had taken their first few steps back towards campus to push the button.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Corona Update: I got a cat, I'm listening to cavetown, and I think if I stop writing I will go absolutely insane.


	22. Chapter 22

1979

Ernst’s watch face was unreadable from the moonlight’s silver reflection. But he was sure that it was long past ten, when Hanschen had agreed to meet him. Sitting alone along the treeline on a practically deserted road wasn’t his ideal Sunday night, but he still stayed. Silent, waiting around the corner from Hanschen’s driveway just as he was told to. So silent, that he could hear the distant sliding open of a window and the thud of Hanschen jumping out of it, followed by a muffled grunt and eventually, footsteps walking up the driveway. The slow, steady steps came closer and closer to Ernst, until Hanschen had stepped off of the driveway, into the road, and practically on top of Ernst.

“Hey,” He whispered, still breathing hard from his escape. He blocked the moonlight that was breaking through the trees, casting a shadow over Ernst and the asphalt. 

“Hey,” Ernst responded, equally as hushed. “Do you have the time?”

Hanschen hugged himself and rubbed his hands over his bare arms, even in the summer, the air around them had a chill to it. “I know, I’m sorry you waited so long. I was still packing.”

He began to walk down the road, presumably to distance himself from his house and his sleeping parents within. Ernst, with a sigh, followed close behind, pulling his bike alongside him. “Packing?” He allowed the volume of his voice to raise a bit, but the echo it made through the hopefully deserted trees.

“Yeah, packing,” Hanschen cast a nervous look over his shoulder at the house once more. “We’re leaving tomorrow morning.”

Ernst didn’t realize he had stopped walking until Hanschen stopped too, having walked a few more steps before realizing his companion was standing still. All Ernst could see to tell Hanschen was looking at him was the shift of his shocking blond hair and the gleam of his eyes against moonlight. “Wait, you’re leaving tomorrow? Back home?”

“Yeah, didn’t I tell you?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Oh,” Hanschen muttered, looking to the ground and down the road and anywhere else that wasn’t at Ernst. “Well, school starts up again in a week.”

Ernst bit at the inside of his cheek and nodded, realizing how dumb he looked standing in the middle of the road and how dumb he felt for being hit with a wave of sadness over Hanschen leaving. 

Friends of his had left before, and he had always felt sad when they did. But now, he couldn’t help but feel like something had ended abruptly. It felt like more was supposed to happen between him and Hanschen that hadn’t yet. And he had never felt that way about anyone else. 

His silence must’ve shown this sadness, as Hanschen spoke up again after a few moments of walking. “I’m sorry I forgot to tell you, Ernst.”

“It’s not that,” He deflected, trying his best to quirk a smile. The thought of ‘what am I going to do without him’ still rattling around his mind, he shook his head. “No, I’m just pissed at you for making me wait.”

That couldn’t have been further from the truth. Ernst would have waited until the sun rose if he had to. It was better than going back home, where he didn’t need to sneak around and jump out of windows like Hanschen. He would simply walk in the front door just like he walked out of it, unquestioned and unnoticed. He thought about how Hanschen’s parents would react if they knew the boys were out this late, their worried faces. And for a moment, Ernst was jealous. 

But that passed when Hanschen laughed. “Are you going to complain about that all night?” He stopped walking, turning to Ernst and gesturing to his still unused bike. “You mind if I ride on your handlebars? My bike was in the garage.”

Ernst nodded and attempted to shake off the foreboding feeling that was suddenly clinging to him. He tried to focus on the good things, the full moon above them turning green fields dark blue as they jetted by. He focused on Hanschen, holding himself upright along the bumpy path down to the water, his head tilted up and his pale face bathed by moonlight. He would lean back every so often, his shoulder leaning absentmindedly against Ernst’s arm for a moment before he pulled himself forward again, letting out a chuckle as Ernst sped up to match his quick beating heart.

Focusing on Hanschen only made it worse, he had decided. Now, everytime he looked at Hanschen, all he could think of was how soon he would be gone. Hearing his laugh and seeing his silver blond hair fly in every direction only reminded him that he would never see or hear it again.

He couldn’t put a name on the feeling at the time. Years would have to pass before he would even dare call it love.

When they arrived at the shore, Ernst watched Hanschen jump off of the handlebars and rush to the water, “Nobody’s around!” He exclaimed. During June or July, the lake would still be bubbling with vacationers. But now, with September fast approaching, it was abandoned by sundown. Summer was quickly sliding out of Ernst’s grasp, and he was watching it leave.

“What are you staring at me for?”

Now, in the unfiltered moonlight, Ernst could clearly see Hanschen looking at him, his head tilted a bit to the side and his lips curling up into a smile when Ernst suddenly looked away. “You look stupid.”

“How?” The word came out in a chuckle that made Ernst’s ears turn pink.

“I don’t know, you always look stupid,” He tossed his bike to the pebble covered earth and approached Hanschen, who was still looking at him with smiling eyes. “What are you staring at me for?”

“No reason,” His voice was soft, whispering almost. Ernst felt the urge to open his arms and pull him into a hug, just as Hanschen had done to him earlier that summer. But he could only imagine how much more awkward the night would become after that, so instead, he just smiled and looked out to the quiet waters. He would much rather stay in that moment for the rest of the night.

“Hey,” Hanschen broke through the content silence they were sitting in. He sat down on the rocks with the recklessness only a fourteen year old could hold and asked, looking up at the bright stars above them, “Wanna play truth or dare?”


	23. Chapter 23

1985

“Oh, Good Morning,” Hanschen muttered upon opening the door. He looked surprised, but not angered. If anything, there was a little wave of relief to wash over him. 

“Good morning,” Ernst responded, still standing stiff on the front step. He looked over Hanschen to see him in a state he had never seen before. His hair, instead of playfully tussled, was completely undone. He wore a plain white tank top that hugged close to his form and a baggy pair of flannel pajama pants hung from his hips. He looked like he had never intended on anything but the mirror to see him this way, and now stood face to blushing face with Ernst Robel. “I’m sorry, I knew you wouldn’t be expecting me. I’m sorry, I’ll head back-”

“No. Come inside. Please.” Hanschen’s tone was urgent at first, but became slower and more confident as he spoke. “I wasn’t expecting you but I’m very glad you came, Ernst.”

He stepped aside to allow Ernst inside before shutting the door behind him. Ernst walked up the stairs to the studio on instinct, past the wall full of Hanschen which also seemed to be looking at him with surprise. From behind him, the current Hanschen spoke, “I was sure you weren’t going to come. I thought you had...” He coughed nervously into his hand, the other attempting to push back and tame his blond thorns. “I thought that maybe it had ended. That that you were ‘over’ me.” When Ernst turned back to look at him, Hanschen seemed to pull back into himself a bit. “Those are your words, not mine.” 

Ernst set his bag down and looked around the room at the Sunday morning scene he had disturbed. Hanschen asked in a shy voice, “Did it end? Are you over it all?”

He didn’t reply immediately, just looked around the room. He saw a still steaming cup of coffee sitting on the coffee table, accompanied by an unfolded newspaper and a plate with a half eaten piece of toast. Things that would have been insignificant suddenly warmed Ernst’s heart, endearing him even further. Because they were all Hanschen’s, little bits and pieces of his life. 

“No, I don’t think I am. I think it’s only gotten worse, actually.”

Still standing at the stairs, Hanschen let out a long exhale. “Jesus Christ,” He muttered, as if trying to catch a spinning world. Or like he had never imagined speaking the words he was about to say, “I don’t think I’m over it either. I don’t think I ever have been.”

Before Ernst could ask what he meant by that, Hanschen was on the move. His nervousness fading, the Hanschen Ernst was accustomed to seeming to appear as he whisked around the room, pulling on a baggy grey cardigan as if to make it all more decent before he rushed back to Ernst. With a hand on either of Ernst’s shoulders, he turned the enchanted man to look at the grand wall behind them. The wall covered in Hanschen and all of his awards. “When did you meet me?” He asked, gesturing to the pictures of all of the various versions of himself.

It took Ernst a moment, but upon locating a certificate dated ‘1979’ he pointed to the picture hanging above it. “There. Summer of seventy-nine.”

The picture was of a young teenage boy, standing with a content look on his face as he held a vertical split, his leg only inches from his face. Hanschen looked at it for a moment or so, as if recalling a person he had forgotten, before pointing at it. “The ball of my foot should be tucked more.” He said, his tone suddenly filled with venomous disappointment. “And the angle that my knee is at is completely wrong, I look like a broken doll.” He then pointed to another, only slightly more recent, of a teenage Hanschen mid-jump. “My hips aren’t square. And my arms are over extended.” He took a step away from both Ernst and the wall, taking it all in with his hands on his hips. “Every one of these pictures are full of errors. I can’t tell you how much I wish I could tear this fucking wall down.”

“I don’t see any of that,” Ernst tried over and over again to see what Hanschen was seeing, but didn’t notice anything but perfection. He often looked at the pictures while they rehearsed and wished he could do the same. He couldn’t believe that Hanschen was glaring at them with such disdain. 

“Of course you don’t,” He chuckled, his eyes flicking back and forth between Ernst and the wall. “No one can be a perfectionist and a dancer at the same time. You’ll drive yourself insane. That’s why I had to stop. I was tearing myself apart to be perfect.” His gaze suddenly fell on Ernst, still standing unsure on the studio floor. All anger left his eyes, now softening with awe. “That’s why you amaze me so much.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at the thought, chuckling out an unsteady, “I’m not perfect, Hanschen.”

“But you don’t have to be. It’s the details of you, Ernst,” Hanschen was quick to say, obvious that he had been thinking this for months and months. His words were eager as he reached out to touch Ernst’s shoulder. “It’s the way you stand, how you hold yourself, how effortless it all is. How your back bends. How you point your toes. How your arms are perfectly bended.” His hand had wandered down Ernst’s arm before holding Ernst’s much smaller hands by the wrists. “How elegant your hands are. How delicate and effortless it all is for you.”

Ernst, face flushed with shock, let out a little gasp as he tried to find any hint of a joke in Hanschen’s face. But his eyes were sincere, looking into Ernst’s and didn’t expect anything from it. He looked content to stand there, breathless by Ernst’s beauty. “I…” Ernst let out, his voice shaking with disbelief. “I don’t think….” And then, after a long, slow breath to steady his spinning head, he spoke softly, “You’re still a beautiful teacher.”

Hanschen let out a little scoff, shaking his head. He was so candid there, laying himself bare before Ernst for no other reason than to be seen by him. “But you don’t need me. You can dance gorgeously without a teacher…” And then, in a tiny exhale, shaken by the weight of his own words. “But if it weren’t for you, what would I be wasting my time on?”

With a gentle touch, Hanschen pulled Ernst’s hand to his lips, pressing a kiss adoringly to the palm. “Thank you for coming back,” He whispered into the soft of Ernst’s skin, his long eyelashes resting atop of his cheeks

“Thank you for having me,” The sentence had hardly come out of Ernst’s mouth when he was pulled into an embrace. Hanschen had practically wrapped himself around Ernst, his arms tight around Ernst’s thin torso. He buried his face in Ernst’s shoulder, his breath hot through the thin fabric of Ernst’s leotard. 

The two men could have stood there for hours, cradling each other like they were made of gold. Ernst let out a calm sigh, reaching up to stroke Hanschen’s hair as he felt Hanschen’s fists ball in the fabric of his shirt. Any feeling of dread or anxiety vanished in the knowledge that any battle they were fighting, whether with each other or themselves, was over. They didn’t have to say anything to know that.

“Well, I wanted to get some rehearsal in today,” Ernst chuckled after some time had passed. “Auditions for the highlights performance are in a week.”

Hanschen pulled away from the hug, his face and nose flushed red from something Ernst could have sworn were tears. “Of course, of course,” He said, assuming his usual disposition once more. Still holding Ernst an arms-length away, he nodded. “Will you please excuse me to go find some pants.”


	24. Chapter 24

1985

Almost no words had been spoken between the students lining the walls of the hallway. A new student would arrive and silently check their name off of the list on the door before joining the others. Some stretched, some meditated, some fiddled and fixed their blacks over and over again. But Ernst and Ilse were just staring. 

The pair sat, practically blank faced, with their backs against the walls and their gazes seemingly anywhere else but there. They had spent most of the morning wrestling with their anxieties and going over their solos over and over again in their heads. Ernst could see himself move across the floors of the studio, his body bending and turning to the music he had requested they provided, but this mental revision was quickly cut short by his worries returning. What if they messed up the music selection? What if the song skips? What does he say when he goes in? How many people are going to watch him? Just Madame Rilow or would there be an entire panel? 

He looked at the people around him and none of them seemed half as panicked as he was. But it also seemed like this wasn’t their first time. Enrst couldn’t recognize any other freshman there besides himself and Ilse.

And also, very suddenly, Moritz.

“Moritz!” Ilse chuckled as the young man approached her and Ernst’s spot against the wall. Her voice broke the strange air of silence that filled the corridor. Moritz walked through the other students uneasily, narrowly avoiding stepping on someone’s bag or outstretched leg. “What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t say you were auditioning,” Ernst chuckled as their friend arrived at their feet and squatted down in front of them, completely in the way of everyone else. 

“Oh no, I’m not. I’m not fuckin’ delusional,” The young man was holding in front of him a paper plate covered haphazardly by a paper towel, which he held out to the other two. “I came with a delivery.”

When neither Ernst nor Ilse moved to pull back the paper towel, he gestured towards them once more. With a sideways glance and a stifled giggle, Ernst pulled back the covering to reveal half a dozen cupcakes. Their white and purple frosting had been marred by their form of transportation, but the sugary writing ‘GO OD L U C K’ was still legible.

“The letter spacing is all fucked up because I couldn't fit eight on the plate, y’know. But I still think they came out better than expect-”

His blushing excuse was cut short by Ilse leaning forward and throwing her arms around his neck, “They are perfect, Moritz!” She cried out, hiding her smiling face in his jacket.

“Thank you, Mo,” Ernst chuckled and pulled a cupcake from the plate once Ilse moved out of his way. Moritz smiled in return, his ears turning bright pink under their praises. “How long did this take you?”

“Not super long. I couldn’t sleep last night so I went to the third floor kitchen and- ow! Fuck!” Once more, Mortiz was cut off, but this time by the door to the audition room flying open and hitting him in the back. “Yup,” He muttered, shuffling out of the way as the fourth semester cast an annoyed look in his direction and continued on her way out of the hallway. “That one was definitely on me.”

“Oh, lord,” Ilse, face suddenly stricken with worry, stood up and nudged past Moritz. She double checked the list once more to be certain that she was next and nodded to the other two. “I will see you both on the other side.”

“Break a leg!” Ernst’s warm assurance was over lapped by Moritz’s “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

She smiled a shy smile and opened the door, her head suddenly lifting to become the proud Ilse that Ernst had grown to both love and roll his eyes at. 

“Are you after her?” Moritz asked once the doors closed, sliding into Ilse’s spot against the wall. He looked a bit out of place with his plate full of cupcakes and wearing his street clothes, but he didn’t seem to mind as he began to devour one of his own cake creations.

“Yeah, I am,” The realization finally set in for Ernst, making his anxiety come back ten times over. With nervous hands, he went through his dance bag and triple checked that he had everything he needed. His mouth suddenly dry, he dug through the bag desperately to find a water bottle before his hand brushed against a folded up piece of paper he didn’t remember placing there the night before. 

Pulling it from the bag, Ernst unfolded the typewritten note and read at the top: ‘Ernst, I hope you find this note before you go in for your audition.’

He chuckled, just barely. 

“What’s that?” Moritz asked and leaned over to attempt to read the letter over Ernst’s shoulder. Feigning offense, Ernst pulled it to his chest and glared mockingly in Moritz’s direction. 

‘I hope you aren’t too worried, but I know you probably are. Because that’s just who you are. Please remember to relax your shoulders and make sure not to lock your knees. Also, try to smile, I promise you that your smile could work wonders on a person’s heart.

Speaking as your tutor, I am very proud of the progress you’ve made and I can assure you that you have exactly what it takes to perform.  
Speaking at your Hanschen, you have never ceased to amaze me every day.

Come over as soon as you’re done and we’ll celebrate.

All of my affections, Hanschen Rilow Esq.’

“God,” Ernst scoffed, putting his face in his hand to stop Mortiz from noticing his blush. “What a sap?”

“I assume it’s a correspondence from Mister Rilow?” Moritz chuckled. When Ernst nodded, still containing a giddy smile, he sighed. “You two make me fuckin’ sick.”

All Ernst could do was laugh quietly, reading over the letter one more time, and then another, and then another. He didn’t even realize the door had opened and Ilse had come out of the audition room until Moritz elbowed him, “Go on, dude,” He said as Ernst scrambled to stand up and right himself. “Good luck, break a leg, sprain an ankle, dislocate a knee.”

“Break a leg would have been enough,” He smiled and, without even realizing it, tucked the letter into his waistband. He couldn’t say why, but it felt important enough to carry with him. Even if it was sappy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes, you don't write anything for a month even though you're quarantined. and that's called the creative process, baybee.


	25. Chapter 25

1979

Both boys stood stiff, a good distance between them. Even though no one was looking, both were certain that the world was watching them closely. 

“Are you going to come back?” Ernst looked at the ground as he spoke, one foot planted firm and the other dangling helplessly at the other side of the bike, kicking at pebbles.

Even though Hanschen had been standing with Ernst at the top of the driveway for almost a minute now, these words were the first spoken between them. The silence beforehand was tentative, each nervous that the other would mention what had happened on the shoreline the night before. 

“Of course I’ll come back,” Hanschen scoffed, as if Ernst was crazy for asking. He kicked back a piece of gravel that Ernst had kicked to him. Both boys smiled a bit, relaxed that they would not have to address the events of last night and what it meant. But they still kept their distance, afraid that they might do it again. “I’ll come by house first thing next summer.”

With a raised eyebrow, Ernst let himself look up at the boy, “Promise?”

With eyes locked on Ernst, Hanschen responded, unaware that what he was saying was a lie. “I promise, Ernst.”

“Hansi! Come help mom with the deck chairs!”

Hanschen nodded to his sister, calling down, “One minute!” Before looking back to Ernst. He noticed how flushed Ernst’s cheeks were and questioned whether it was the sun or the thought of the kiss that turned him pink. “Bye, Ernst,” He nodded, hands stuffed into his pockets. “I’ll see you next summer.”

Ernst nodded back, “I’ll see you then, Hansi.”

At first, the nickname made Hanschen’s face contort, flustered for a moment before it fell into a soft smile. He looked back to Ernst, seemingly torn between punching him and hugging him before he settled with a laugh. “I’ll give you a pass this time.”

And with that, Hanschen rushed back down the driveway, towards the rest of his family who were packing the family car, cleaning the house, putting it back to the condition it was in before the Rilow’s had arrived. Soon, their Charger would leave the driveway, Hanschen in it, and return the way it had come in June. And Ernst would ponder whether or not to let himself cry about it on his ride home.

Or maybe he wouldn’t ride home. Maybe he would ride back down to the lake, where Hanschen had kissed him, and sit on the cold ground and wonder if he would ever feel that again. 

He assured himself that he would, when Hanschen returned the next summer. He imagined what the next year would do to the both of them, how much taller they would grow, how much broader their shoulders would become. And when the next summer came, he would wait, ready to tell Hanschen all about what had happened since the two last spoke. He would wait, riding his bike up and down the street, waiting to see the family’s Charger come around the corner, or waiting to see Hanschen come rushing down the road to greet him as he sat in his front lawn. 

And he would wait some more, into July, asking his parents if anyone came for him, to which they would tell him that no one had for months. But still he would wait into August, with no word from Hanschen. 

And he would spend his days, switching between watching the TV and watching the windows for any sign of blond hair. He stayed up at night too, just in case Hanschen would arrive late, so bored that he found himself trying to mimic the ballet dancers he had seen on TV that day. 

And he would wait until the summer ended, lonely and silent. And so would the next summer, and the next, until he had almost completely forgotten about the American boy he had met back when he was thirteen.

And he would go on to kiss other boys, and mimic more dancers until his mother finally relented to drive him into town for ballet lessons and he would learn to forget about the boy he knew one summer.

He didn’t know that then, though, standing at the top of the driveway and watching the family go about their packing. Then, he was sure that this friendship was not confined to just one summer, that the butterflies in his stomach that burst into flutters every time he saw Hanschen would one day soar.

He was still lost in thought when Hanschen turned around, just before he stepped into the house. He took a deep, courage summoning breath and charged back up the hill of the driveway, his quick feet falling certain on his walk back to Ernst. 

“What?” Ernst asked as Hanschen arrived at the road once more, leaning forward over his handlebars. No more words were spoken before Hanschen leaned forward and pressed his lips to Ernst’s cheek. The entire movement was quick, lasting only a second or so and not daring to linger as Hanschen wished he could have. 

By the time Ernst could process what was happening, Hanschen was standing upright again. He cleared his throat, his face joining Ernst’s in a rosey blush. “See you next summer.”

Ernst had never seen someone run as Hanschen ran back down the driveway and into the cabin. He wanted to call out to him, but immediately he knew better. So instead, with his hand still pressed to his cheek in shock, he began his ride back home, content in the falsehood that the boys would see each other again in a year’s time.


	26. Chapter 26

1985

The spring morning’s silence was cut by the sudden, fast footsteps of Ernst. He sprinted down the dew-slick sidewalk, his jacket flying behind him like a denim flag. Only stumbling slightly when he arrived at the Rilow residence, the young man pushed his thumb against the doorbell below the ‘Hanschen Rilow Esq.’ label, which appeared to be peeling. 

He kept his finger pressed firmly against it and filled the house with buzzing until he saw the curtains of the upstairs windows pull back, just as they had the first morning Ernst had come by. From the other side of the glass, Hanschen squinted down at Ernst, still in the wrinkled tee shirt and sweatpants that he had slept in. 

Ernst waited with shallow breath for the front door to open, letting out a long sigh when he heard the lock click and then Hanschen was standing before him, leaning against the doorframe and attempting to hide a smile. “Don’t you have class soon? What are you doi…?”

His voice petered off as Ernst raised his hands in front of him, clamping them together as if in prayer before exclaiming, “Hanschen, I got in!”

The pair stood in silence for a second or so, Hanschen’s sleepy mind attempting to compute what he just heard. Ernst couldn’t help but crack a grin when he saw Hanschen’s mind suddenly click with realization and his face erupt with joy. “Ernst!” He exclaimed, suddenly reaching out to pull his companion into an embrace. 

His arms wrapped tight around Ernst’s torso, his face pressing to his shoulder, where warm breath through layers of fabric made Ernst’s skin break into goosebumps. Content, Ernst let out a giddy giggle and rested his head on top of Hanschen’s, breathing deep the smell of sweet shampoo and hand-rolled cigarettes. The stillness lasted barely a moment or two before Hanschen took a step back, his hands moving up to cup both sides of Ernst’s face.

“Ernst,” he gasped, “You’re kidding! Your first year and you got in! You’re a damn god.”

Ernst laughed, leaning down to leave a gentle kiss on Hanschen’s lips. “No, the list was hung in the lobby this morning. And my name was on it. Clear as day.”

“Clear as day…” Hanschen sighed and pulled Ernst back for another kiss, which quickly became a series of kisses. And this would have continued for some time if Ernst had not placed his hands on Hanschen’s chest and pushed the two apart. 

“Hanschen, Hanschen, “ He chuckled, their foreheads pressing together out of the sheer need to be connected once more. “If you actually told your mom to let me in-”

“No!”

“-I won’t be mad-”

“I didn’t!”

“-Just don’t tell me because that would be murder to my ego.”

Offended, Hanschen reached up to tousle Ernst’s hair, his hand pushing Ernst back and making him take a stumbling step back. In that moment, they were boys again, standing on the rocky shore and attempting to shove each other away between giggles. “Ernst,” He said in a scolding tone as the other laughed. “I swear to you I never said a word about you to my mother. You got into the showcase purely based on talent.”

“Oh, shut up,” Ernst leaned in for another kiss, but was disappointed when his lips met the side of Hanschen’s face. 

“No, I won’t,” The blond proclaimed, his wide eyes taking in Ernst’s form over and over again. “You are the most talented, most beautiful-”

Ernst managed to sneak a quick kiss. But it only lasted a second or two before Hanschen was talking again. “Most clever, most hardworking-”

Another kiss, muffled by Ernst’s giggle, but Hanschen seemed dead serious. “Literally one of the best human beings to ever walk this earth-”

“Hanschen!” Ernst had to laugh, hands moving up to grip his shoulders as he spoke. “I love you would have sufficed.”

Another silent moment as Hanschen comprehended what Ernst had said. When he did, his face tinted the slightest pink and he nodded, “Fine,” He couldn’t help but smile, meeting Ernst’s warm gaze with his own. “Then I love you, Ernst.”


	27. Chapter 27

1985

Of the countless people rushing through and around backstage, Ernst was able to spot Hanschen in the mirror the second he turned the corner into the room. He moved to turn his head to look at the other man, but Ilse’s demanding hand pushed him back into place. “Hold still, Ernst!” She hissed, pulling her hand away to look at the progress she had made so far in his makeup, then pressed the pencil to his eyelid once more. 

“Are they here yet?” He asked, the murmur of the audience from beyond the curtain growing louder and louder by the minute. 

Hanschen nodded as he leaned against the back of Ernst’s stool, the two making eye contact only in the vanity mirror sat before Ernst. “Yes, and they were very confused when I introduced myself,” He set his hands on Ernst’s shoulders, rubbing at the tense knot forming between the blades. “I take it that you haven’t told them about me yet.”

Ernst went to shake his head, but was suddenly stopped by the realization that Ilse still had an eyeliner pencil pressed to his waterline. “No. And I think I’d rather die than do so. The ‘I want to do ballet’ talk was enough to make things weird in that house.”

“I think ‘I want to do ballet’ is just as good as coming out. Maybe better.”

Holding back his laughter, Ernst’s gaze moved from his reflection up to Hanschen’s. Unlike all the other dancers and stage hands rushing around backstage, he was impeccably dressed in a sharp black suit jacket on top of the dark blue turtleneck Ernst had helped him pick for the occasion. He looked better suited for the front row beside his mother and sisters than backstage, pushing his palms into Ernst’s anxious skin. “Is Moritz out there?” Ilse asked, leaning back to look at what she had done so far to Ernst’s face.

“Yes, I think so,” Hanschen said, “I saw him in the back.”

“Oh, fuck!” She muttered before pressing the eyeliner into Hanschen’s hand and collected her things. “I better make sure he saved me a seat. Can you finish for me?”

“No,” Hanschen replied, but she paid no mind, pressing her lips to the crown of Ernst’s head.

“Break a leg, Ernst.” And she was off nudging her way through the sea of dancers.

Now alone, Hanschen held the make up pencil out at arms length, as if to examine it. “Do you know how to use that?” Ernst asked tentatively.

“No, do you?”

“No.”

Both erupted into a fit of well deserved giggles, shaking their heads and pretending like Ernst wasn’t still ruined with nerves. Hanschen moved around to the side of Ernst, leaning against the vanity as Ilse had. “Christ, Ernst. She made you look like a drag queen.”

Suddenly self conscious, his eyes widened at his reflection, “Really? Is it that bad?”

“Relax, dear,” Hanschen sighed, holding Ernst chin with one hand as he rubbed at his cheeks with the other, attempting to rub off some of the bright pink blush that Ilse had applied. “You still look wonderful.”

A deep breath and Ernst shut his eyes, leaning into Hanschen’s touch. The opening night commotion seemed to stop for a moment and he took another breath, “Sorry about my parents,” Ernst said after a few moments of Hanschen’s focussed silence. “I didn’t know you wanted them to know. I just assumed that-”

“It’s fine. Really,” Hanschen assured and made an attempt to wipe away some of the thick black makeup under Ernst’s eyes. “They’ll find out eventually. I don’t mind waiting a bit longer.”

“Eventually?” Hanschen nodded before accidentally poking Ernst in the eye. “Hey, ow!”

“Sorry, sorry!” He muttered quickly. Then, with a shrug, he continued casually. “Well, I just assume they’d find out when you start taking the train to Rhode Island on the weekends.” When Ernst’s brow furrowed in confusion, Hanschen was fast to correct himself, “Unless you don’t want to visit me when school starts again. I can completely understand if you don’t want to.”

“No, I do. I do!” Ernst attested.

A soft smile spread on Hanschen’s face. “Good, because I told some of my friends at Brown about you and they’re dying to meet you.”

He nodded slowly, trying to comprehend exactly what this meant. He had never pictured Hanschen telling anyone about their relationship. He had never even pictured that what they had was a relationship. Part of him had always wished that it was, but another part, a more realistic part, told him that what was between them was something secret as well as sacred. 

“What are you making that face for, dear?” Hanschen asked, studying Ernst’s face with a raised eyebrow.

He shook his head, his sprayed-stiff hair sticking to his forehead as he did. “I don’t know. I just didn’t know that you wanted to continue whatever this is.”

“Are you serious?” Hanschen laughed. When Ernst tentatively nodded, he reached out to press a hand to Ernst’s cheek, careful to not ruin any of Ilse’s hard work. “I’ve already lost you once, Ernst. Do you think I’m dumb enough to let you go again?”

His words made Ernst want to jump up and down and scream and cry and take Hanschen in his arms and kiss him over and over and over. It made him wish he could bring fourteen year old Ernst to this exact moment. The Ernst who pined for Hanschen, who thought that all they had would be forever lost and who would let Hanschen fade into a memory. He wanted to hold the young boy’s face in his hands and say over and over ‘It all works out, it all works out, I promise it all works out’.

He wondered if he would tell the fourteen year old Ernst not to kiss as many random boys and not to tell himself that he was unlovable. But he knew that he wouldn’t have listened. 

The part of him that was still fourteen though, and would always be fourteen, was smiling up at Hanschen so hard tears began to form. And when he couldn’t open his mouth to speak, Hanschen spoke instead.

“You know, ‘I love you’ would have sufficed.”

Ernst pushed through his lovestruck smile and reached out to shove Hanschen away. Laughing, Hanschen caught himself from stumbling backwards and pulled himself back to Ernst with his hands wrapped around the young man’s waist, “That made a lot more sense in the context I said it in.”

“Sure but I’ve been waiting to say it for weeks,” Hanschen said through giggles. As he spoke, he leaned down to press his lips to Ernst’s. “Let me have this moment, you had yours.”

Their lips had only touched for a moment when the noise of the crowd suddenly went quiet, accompanied by the dimming of the theater lights. “Fuck…” Ernst whispered to himself as he stood up, brushing the loose powder off of the front of his costume. Turning back to Hanschen, he asked, “Do I look okay?”

Hanschen’s eyes trailed up and down Ernst’s form, draped in the flowy, black, silk-like fabric that billowed around his arms and legs but was cinched tight at his wrists and his ankles atop of his bare feet. Although he thought it was trying too hard to be modern, he was content in knowing that Ernst’s costume for his solo was simple tights and the long sleeve white leotard he had found after a day of digging through Hanschen’s old ballet boxes.

“You look beautiful, dear.”

As the other dances hurried around to the wings for the group dance, Ernst still hesitated by Hanschen. “Aren’t you going to go to your seat?” 

Hanschen shook his head, pressing his knuckle to his lips, “I will. I just want to see the opening from the wings. It makes me feel like I’m a part of it.”

Ernst didn’t say anything else. He simply nodded, content in returning the smile that Hanschen was trying to hide. And then he was off, rushing to join his colleagues in preparing to go on stage. 

As the stage lights came up, and the speakers crackled to life with Chopin’s Valse Op 64 No.2 , the anxieties that had haunted Ernst just a moment before, seemed to dissipate. And as he rushed onto the stage he found himself not shaking or tensing up, staring out into Hanschen’s empty seat in the first row and imagining fourteen year old Ernst there once more, smiling at him. He danced as if to say ‘It works out, I promise. I promise, I promise, I promise’.


	28. Chapter 28

1991

The slow piano music had not shaken Ernst awake, but instead hesitantly pulled him back into reality. He didn’t realize the music wasn’t coming from dreams until he pulled his face away from the pillow and realized that the sound was coming from the cracked open bedroom door leading to the hallway. 

The music was familiar to him, making his toes twitch and his body ache to fall into muscle memory. Immediately, it threw him back to his first year of college, and the empty stage before him. How his lungs filled with air and his mind flicked to blank serenity in the second before the first note played.

“That’s Arvo Pärt. Spiegel im Spiegel,” He commented casually as he stood with a bit of a slouch in the entrance to the dining room.

With a bit of a start, Hanschen looked up from the book in his hand and at the man standing in the doorway. “Yes. It is. And a good morning to you too, dear,” He set his mug of coffee down and smiled softly, overjoyed by just seeing Ernst in that moment. He was still attempting to shake off sleep, his eyes half open and his shiny brown hair sticking out in every direction. Hanschen had seen all of this earlier in the morning as well, when he attempted to sneak out of their bed as silently as possible, as to not wake Ernst. But about an hour had passed since then and Hanschen, as he often did, was beginning to miss Ernst. 

“Coffee’s probably cold by now. But I can make another pot if you want,” He said once his moment of admiration had passed. Ernst didn’t respond to this, and instead walked past Hanschen’s seat at the table and into the living room. He approached the ancient record player in the corner of the room, nestled between an overflowing bookshelf and the chair that Ernst had claimed as His Chair years before. “What is it?” Hanschen asked, craning his neck to see Ernst staring down at the spinning record.

“This was my solo freshman year,” He said simply, still watching the record spin.

“Oh yes,” Hummed Hanschen. “It was, wasn’t it.”

Ernst closed his eyes, listening to the ache of the violin through the speakers. In his mind he saw it all, clear as day. How he had moved so slowly, he was sure the world was turning without him. How he raised his arm, careful to curl it just as Hanschen had ordered.

And then he remembered the years of other solos after that, and the sweat, and the performances, and the shows, and the hours under the lights. And then he remembered last night, and let out a long sigh.

“How was the performance?” Hanschen asked, studying the way Ernst rubbed at his constantly aching neck. 

Ernst turned around and began the walk back to his husband at the dining table. But the label of husband was only said in his mind. At any other time, Hanschen was introduced as his ‘partner’, his ‘companion’, and if he didn’t want to deal with the stares, his ‘roommate’. Ernst knew though, that the man before him could be described in no way other than his husband. “It went well,” He shrugged, lowering himself into the seat beside Hanschen’s with a quiet groan. “Good turn out for a Saturday night. No big mess ups that I saw at least.”

“No costume malfunctions yet?”

“Not yet,” Ernst joined in Hanschen’s little chuckle. “But any day now, I feel like it’s gonna happen.”

“Your tights are the same color as your skin. It looks like it’s already happening.”

“I think one night while I’m doing my leaps-”

“What? That your penis is going to flop out from your little leaf sash?”

The pair both broke into a fit of giggles, imagining Ernst exposed in front of A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s audience. Through his laughter, Ernst added, “Change the name entirely. It’s Puck’s Penile Adventure now.”

Hanschen shook his head and rubbed his forehead with his fingertips, stifling his chuckles. “Jesus Christ, Ernst.”

After this, a little silence. Ernst leaned back in his chair and looked out through the bay window across the table from him. Hanschen had insisted they get the apartment because of it, looking out onto the bustling Brooklyn neighborhood. He watched the people come and go past their front stoop; women pushing baby carriages, joggers and bikes buzzing past them. Ernst enjoyed the hum of the city much more than he had ever enjoyed the silent countryside he had grown up calling home. 

Leaning forward, Ernst suddenly felt the nerves around his shoulders ache. He let out a gentle groan and reached back to rub the aching area, pulling Hanschen’s attention once more. “What’s the damage?” He asked knowingly. 

“When Oberon lifted me,” Enrst began to explain, but Hanschen had already stood up from his chair and moved towards Ernst. “I think I arched back too far.”

Hanschen let out an interested ‘huh’ and, standing above Ernst, began to rub at the sore muscles through the thin fabric of Ernst’s tee shirt. “You might be pushing yourself too far, Ern-”

“I’m not.”

“Remember what you did to your knee last week?”

“Because I came out of a turn odd. Ow.”

Hanschen huffed, not relenting in his massage. “You came out of it like you always do. Maybe you just can’t DO what you always do anymore, dear.”

Ernst would never admit that Hanschen was right, even if he knew he was. But now, he could see some sense in his partner’s point. He hadn’t given himself a moment to breath since he left the academy. Barely a week after graduation, he started rehearsals for New York Ballet’s Cinderella. And he hadn’t taken a break since then, working in show after show for years. The Lincoln Center was more his home than any apartment was. And for a long time he was proud of this. 

Now, though, he became unsure.

“Hans, do you think twenty-five is too old to be dancing?” He asked suddenly, startling both himself and Hanschen.

After a brief pause, Hanschen replied. “No, dear, I don’t think it is.” His strong hands stopped their work at Ernst’s shoulders and he began his walk into the kitchen. “Why are you letting time get to you now? It never bothered you before. Hey, it’s still warm.”

The pair shared a knowing glance as Hanschen poured Ernst a mug of coffee and set it before him, along with the bowl of sugar Ernst insisted they purchase. 

“Thank you,” He smiled and took a long sip, savoring the bitter taste. “You know, Hanschen, you would make a wonderful father.”

Hanschen returned Ernst’s gaze of admiration with a look of dizzied confusion. “What?”

Ernst shrugged, in an attempt to both hide his intentions and make the interaction a bit more casual. “You take care of people naturally. It’s instinctual. You’d be a lovely dad.”

Chuckling, Hanschen walked back to the kitchen to refresh his own cup of coffee. “I think a bit more time needs to pass for that to happen.”

“Why? Why are you letting time get to you?”

Hanschen looked up from his mug to see Ernst, grinning at him with a glint in his amber brown eyes. There was a moment shared between the two, one of both mutual respect and mutual understanding. Hanschen couldn’t help but smile, shaking his head in something close to disbelief. In that moment, they were both young teens again, standing on the rocky shore and staring at each other like it was their first time seeing another human. And Hanschen could see it all so clearly. “I’m afraid that we’d raise a tiny version of you!” He laughed and leaned on the center island, “Imagine how stubborn that kid would be.”

“A mini-Hanschen would be MUCH worse!” Ernst scoffed, tucking his coffee into his hand and leaning back once more, “He’d be so brilliant but so pretentious.”

“I am not pretentious!” Hanschen defended. Ernst rolled his eyes at the statement and took another deep sip of his drink. Both men smiled a knowing smile. “Damn,” Hanschen mused after a moment or two, rolling up the sleeves of his thick knit sweater. “How did we ever stand each other when we were children?”

Ernst shrugged, his eyes moving back to the window. “I don’t know,” He said in a small voice. “But he had to have liked each other at least a bit.”

“Maybe. Just a bit,” Hanschen muttered and then let the morning quiet return. But, if Ernst had been looking, he would have seen him swaying softly to the sound of the piano still coming from the living room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's that. thank you to everyone who's read and supported this fic. Especially those who left kudos and comments, which are entire reason I keep writing. I had a lot of fun writing something with a HAPPY ending for once. feel free to drop by my Tumblr @melchixr to bully me if you feel so inclined. anyway, thank you for reading and listen to Spiegel im Spiegel for a good cry.

**Author's Note:**

> my Tumblr is @melchixr. cyberbully me there.


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